


Some Kind of Nature

by stilitana



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst and Humor, Attempt at Humor, Awkward Flirting, Borderline Personality Disorder, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Drug Use, Emotional Baggage, Emotionally Repressed, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Families of Choice, Feelings Realization, Identity Issues, Multi, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 20:00:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13302153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilitana/pseuds/stilitana
Summary: The Railroad is gone. Deacon is not sure this is so different from saying he is gone.A strange transmission leads the Sole Survivor and her stalwart companions across the wastes once more to find a hidden settlement.





	1. Halloween

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Fallout. I am not profiting off this story and am writing it purely for entertainment purposes.
> 
> Sometimes you just gotta create that rare pair content yourself am I right ladies?

They have to get to know each other all over again in the aftermath. At least, Deacon feels like he does. The Institute is gone, but old habits die hard, and he really isn’t sure if he could kick them if he tried. He needs to gather intel. What he notices when he looks around Sanctuary, just days after they blew the place sky high, is costumes. Everywhere, people dressed up. And then he sees the plastic pumpkins and skeletons sitting in windows or hanging on the backs of doors and it all hits him hard like a sledgehammer to the chest and he falls onto his ass in the middle of the dusty street, chuckling, then laughing so hard he gets short of breath. He lets himself fall back into the dirt because why the hell not, why the hell shouldn’t he lay down on the goddamn ground and never get up again, why should he, what for?

  
They’re gathering around him, drawn by the hysterical laughter, and he was sort’ve used to being looked at like a headcase but now they looked like they really meant it. There was Piper still acting like the presses never stopped, not for the nuclear apocalypse, not for anything, and the goddamn Ms. Nanny in a synth body all dolled up with a lab coat on like she was a scientist and not a program. (Glory would have hit him for thinking something like that. He doesn’t want to think things like that. Sometimes he is callous for no reason.) There’s Little Miss 111 with her stolen pip-boy masquerading as a vault-dweller rather than a pre-war housewife, now with grease smudged on her face dressed in tatters and grimy leather. Saddest of all was, he thought, Nick Valentine roleplaying some pre-war cop who was himself acting like a noir detective out of a cheap pulp film, but hey, the guy tried. Best of all was Hancock, of course, a ghoul dressed like a freaking Founding Father, as if anybody knew what that was anymore. Raider a while back put it best, Deacon thought, when right before Hancock blew his head off with his shotgun the guy had bellowed, _and what’re you supposed to be, burnbags, a fucking pirate?_ That cracked him up. Guy knew he was about to die and those were his last words, spoken with indignation as though it were a personal offense to be offed by a lunatic playing dress-up.

Don’t even get him started on the synth tin can. Hadn’t seen him around in ages.

“Knew he’d crack up one of these days,” said McCready, staring down at him with his hands on his hips, shaking his head.

“What’s so funny?” Piper asked.

Deacon grinned up at them feeling loopy and weightless and so, so hollow. “It’s still Halloween.”

Sole’s brow furrows. Beside her, Hancock laughs, but no one joins him. It’s obvious it’s because of the jet cannister sticking out of his pocket and not because he gets it. Since the Institute he’s been hitting the drugs harder than usual, Deacon’s noticed, but he won’t say anything about it. It’s not his place to. He notices and files it away for no reason other than he feels compelled to.

“The hell are you talking about?” MacCready said, scowling.

“That’ll be another cap in the swear jaw, ‘Cready,” said Deacon. “You’re making me a rich man.”

MacCready looked like he was about to argue but then thought for a second and realized he had, indeed, slipped up. He’d been doing that a lot more lately. He almost did it again, and everybody heard, the under-the-breath exclamation cut off halfway through.

Deacon smirked. “Careful. Guys your size gotta let off steam once in a while, otherwise it builds up and you’re gonna have smoke coming out your ears.”

“You think you’re a real funny guy, don’t you?” said MacCready, and there was an edge to his voice that let Deacon know he was about to let off some of that steam right here, right now. Everybody heard it.

“Am I?” Deacon asked, and his voice was just desperate and vulnerable enough to make it sound like a real question, to throw MacCready off for a second. Then he got angrier.

“What’re you even still doing here?” he fumed. “The Institute’s gone, your life’s work or whatever is through. Why don’t you and your Railroad buddies go someplace else and, I don’t know, pick up the mantle of Protectron rights?”

“Way ahead of you. Believe me, they had that well under way long before you were king of tiny streetlamp.”

“Little Lamplight,” MacCready snapped. “You’re so full of shit. Is this your way of saying now that they don’t need your cloak and dagger act anymore they’ve scattered and you’re out of a job?”

“Why, you offering? If you’ve got any Gunner contacts I wouldn’t say no.”

MacCready’s face screwed up with anger. God, he was easy to read. Deacon let the faintest hint of a smirk dart across his features and then MacCready was leaning down into his space and there was a weird moment where he was off balance, half lifted by MacCready’s hands fisted in the front of his shirt and yanking him upwards and his own reflexive scramble away from the other man’s irate, reddening face.

“You bastard,” MacCready said.

“MacCready,” said Sole, reaching out a hand which was quickly shrugged off. “Come on, this is...this is ridiculous. I know you’re upset but d-don’t take it out on him.”  
_He’s not worth it_ went unsaid, but Deacon heard it clear as day. He flinched, minutely, an expression visible only if you were as close to his face as MacCready was, only if you were looking for it. MacCready was. It was his turn to smirk. He started to let go, to step away, but something had hold of Deacon’s will, something desperate and needy and very, very unflattering.

“Why not?” said Deacon, because the Institute was gone and so was the Railroad and he was left bereft like the poor unfortunate sap who gets the short straw in a divorce, the ex making off with the house, the kids, with his reason for living and all his values and beliefs and opinions. With that all stripped away he felt exposed and vulnerable and capable of anything. Before, when he forgot who he was and what he stood for, he could lean back and the Railroad would prop him up. Now he leaned back and there was nothing but empty air and he was scrambling like a drowning man about to take MacCready over the edge with him becauses negative attention was better than none.

“You can’t hurt the thing you really want to, so might as well go for it,” said Deacon.

“What’re you talking about?”  
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve been running around for months killing Gunners and we all know it’s not ‘cause you’re suddenly so noble. It’s because they’re a lot easier to punch than a disease or a bad reputation.”

From the corners of his eyes Deacon could see the surprise and confusion on the onlookers’ faces. There was none on MacCready’s, only a stricken sort of fury. Deacon wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On the one hand, at least somebody knew him well enough to not be shocked when he acted like a childish asshole. On the other hand, ouch.

“Deacon, what the hell?” said Piper.

“Finally showing your true colors, huh?” said MacCready. “Don’t need anybody’s help taking down the Institute so you’re gonna just go ahead and burn the bridge?”  
Deacon spread his arms, giving him a thin-lipped smile. “Seems that’s what you’ve been waiting for me to do, so, you know. Your wish is my strong recommendation and all that jazz.”

There’s a second where it looks like MacCready is really trying to make good on his self improvement, but then Deacon sees the shift, can read his thoughts like ticker-tape scrolling across his forehead because he’s that good, it’s what he does. _Ah, fuck it_ , MacCready thinks so loudly it’s audible, and then socks Deacon in the jaw.

He’s got a mean right hook, Deacon will give him that. It sends him staggering backwards and knocks off his sunglasses. Pain radiates outwards from his jaw. He bit his tongue on impact and now tastes blood, feels it welling up thick and hot in his mouth. He takes a deep breath through his nose, hears the rest of them yelling, then spits because christ that’s a lot of blood, swallowing it’ll make him sick for sure.

He grins at MacCready, blood on his teeth. “Keep going. I’ve got pain inhibitors, can’t feel a thing. Let it all out.”

“You’re lying,” MacCready said, the fight visibly bleeding out of him as he sagged against Sole and Nick Valentine, both of whom held his arms. His face was pale and it was clear he already regretted lashing out, even clearer that he wished he didn’t, wished he could be unfettered and just go to town, punch Deacon’s face into pulp. “That fucking hurt, you son of a bitch. Admit it.”

“Gonna have to hit me a lot harder for me to even feel a thing, my man. Come on, I’ll stand still for you, no tricks. Let’s see if your left hook’s got a little more guts behind it,” said Deacon, turning his face to give MacCready a good shot at the other side of his jaw.

“What’s wrong with you!” Piper said, getting between the two men and shoving both hands against Deacon’s chest, knocking his breath from him and sending him back a couple steps to keep from falling over. “Stop it, both of you! You’re acting like idiots! We won, everything’s ok now, everything is going so well here, why are you trying to fuck it up?”

Deacon forces himself to meet her gaze. Her words are painfully naive, a plaintive, childish note in her voice, and from the flush in her cheeks he thinks she knows it and is embarrassed. He brings a hand to the middle of his chest without meaning to as if he could massage away the ache there. He feels like he’s been shot, and the bullet hole is neat and went straight through him but it keeps getting bigger and if she doesn’t see it, if none of them see it, soon there’s not going to be anything left at all.

She must see something that unnerves her in his gaze, because she falters, still glaring down at him like an avenging angel but with a question in her eyes, confused hurt writ large on her face and he hates that, hates that the way she’s looking at him means she takes this personally, as if he’s betrayed them and their happy little family, as if she knew him at all, as if she could expect anything different. Hates even more that she’s caught the pathetic, pleading look on his face. He bends down to scramble in the dirt for his sunglasses and shoves them back on his face, not looking at her as he backs away.

“I don’t know,” he blurts, and inwardly winces because that is not what he meant to say, that’s not it at all. Everyone was staring. He felt his face heating up. He felt naked. _Quick, think of something, just say something, something, anything._ “I’m, uhm, sorry. I just—you know how it is, things got a little slow around here, figured I’d try some psycho, guess I’m just a little amped up. Just a couple of guys having some friendly fisticuffs, Piper, what’s a couple of punches between buddies, right?”

“Just stop,” said Piper, looking away from him. Now her face was stony. Good. He’d given her what she’d been waiting for then. Let her be disappointed, it didn’t matter, he didn’t need her expecting anything of him. Who was she, anyway? Just some Diamond City hack who thought whatever miniscule role she’d played in helping the vault-dweller take down the Institute gave her some kind of authority.

He was being uncharitable. He knew this. He felt the poison stirring up in his stomach, the badness his role in the Railroad had kept at bay.

He looked at the rest of them. Hancock is fidgeting with the canister of jet and giving him a look that can’t decide if it’s entertained or concerned. Nick is squinting off into the middle distance and he’s entirely too old for this, in many ways, for boys scuffling in the dirt for no good reason. MacCready is glowering at his shoes and holding his fist close to his chest. His knuckles must be throbbing. He’s not really a fist-fight kind of guy, Deacon thinks.

Sole is staring right at him, her expression unreadable. “You should have...have Curie look at that, she can g-give you a stimpak if she thinks it might, uhm, might help.”

Deacon waves a hand. “This? Nothing to worry about. No hard feelings, ok?” he says, looking at MacCready, willing the other man to meet his gaze.

He does. “Get lost.”

“Come on, don’t be like that,” Deacon says. “You know that I—don’t stay angry.”

MacCready looks at him with something close to wonder. He shakes his head and turns to walk away, the others nervously dispersings. No one is sure what to do. These kinds of things never happened in Sanctuary. He wonders how long they’ll all stick around here. He wonders who’ll leave first, who’ll be left behind.

“MacCready?” he says, taking a faltering step towards the man’s retreating back. _Are you mad at me_ is on the tip of his tongue but he bites it back, horrified at how close he’d come to blurting it out and sounding like—like a child, like a little kid afraid of his parents’ disapproval.

“Give it a rest,” MacCready snaps over his shoulder. “Leave me alone, Jesus, man.”

“Ok,” Deacon mutters. “Ok, fair, I guess.”

Piper is still standing there, looking at him. “Why?”

Deacon shrugs. “Guy talk, sweetheart. Testosterone. You wouldn’t understand.”

Piper rolls her eyes. “You knew he’d hit you.”

“Yeah.”

  
“Then...what’d you go saying all that crap for? You some kind’ve masochist?”

Deacon shrugged again. “Maybe I could be. Who’s to say.”

“Well, you are,” Piper said, exasperated. “You’re a real piece of work, Shades.”

Deacon’s lips quirked up at the spontaneous nickname. The movement made his face throb. He could feel MacCready’s fist still on his face like a phantom limb, the aftershocks of violence lingering on his skin. A warm, tingling feeling was spreading outwards from the point of impact. It made him shiver even as he stood beneath the burning sun.

 

* * *

 

He met Miss 111 long before she met him. Long, long before that.

The first time she might have gotten a look at him without knowing was during a stint as a drifter in Goodneighbor. He was supposed to be in Diamond City but the people there were evil and if he stayed around them a second longer something was going to snap. He’d watched a guard gun a man down in front of his own brother because of a rumor he’d been a synth. His job was not to act. His job was to watch, to report back. 

He’d messed up before, in the early days. He wouldn’t mess up again. People were counting on him, the Railroad needed his help. And he’d been with them long enough now to know he needed theirs, too, needed Desdemona to say he’d done a good job and Glory to ruffle his hair like he was her favorite brother. They kept him good.

So he watched the murder and when he realized he was close to the edge he backed off of it and retreated quietly to Goodneighbor to let his blood cool off before heading back to HQ. He spent a little time plugged in at the Memory Den because it was a great place to hear things he wasn’t meant to hear, tucked into his pod while everyone presumed he was reliving the good old days, so he had a front row seat to the vaultie resurrecting the Silver Shroud. What a show. He already knew he wanted her in their corner, had known it before she even crawled out of that vault. He just wasn't completely sure on her character. It took only a second for a switch to flip in his brain, for him to build a pedestal and set her atop it. Even better was that she’d come to town with Nick Valentine in tow. Handy enough with a pistol to take down Sinjin, and working with a synth to boot. It helped she saved Kent Connolly, who Deacon admittedly had a weak spot for, but hey, who didn’t?

She was perfect. He had to recruit her, one way or another. He had plans for how to nudge her towards the Freedom Trail a little faster, but before he could implement them circumstances forced him out of town. They were starting to recognize him around Goodneighbor. Kent and Irma had taken to smiling and trying to chat him up when he went to the Den, and though it was tempting to carry on the charade of being just another drifter regular, he knew he needed to change faces soon, especially once he noted MacCready hanging out in the Third Rail. No, he couldn’t risk blowing his cover.

Then of course Hancock’s trigger-happy buffoons had to go and pull a Diamond City by shooting a supposed synth dead in the street and he realized as he watched the body get cold and stiff on the ground that he didn’t feel anything at all about it, one way or another.

He went to the Railroad, went straight to Glory. She was important. He didn’t know why, exactly, except that being around her felt right and he was terrified she’d disappear one day. She and Desdemona were good at talking him down, knew what buttons to press to get him back down to earth, even if they didn't know much about him at all.

When they first met he tried getting close to her in the only ways he knew how, lying up a storm but making sure they were just outlandish enough that she wouldn’t really believe him because he didn’t want to trick her. She got the wrong idea. She tried to let him down gently but it still felt like she’d taken his heart between her hands and wrung it dry when she told him, _I’m not interested, stop trying._

“That’s—that’s not what I meant,” Deacon said, scrambling to go back to how things had been five seconds ago. It wasn’t flirting. It wasn’t about sex. Sure, he’d put it on the table if that was the ticket to making her promise to stick around, but that wasn’t what he wanted. “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable, I didn’t mean to.”

She looked at him, both wary and curious. “Desdemona warned me about guys out here. She said they lie to get what they want, and what they want is into your pants.”

“That’s unfortunately accurate.”

“She also said you just lie about everything, so not to take it to heart.”

“She knows me so well. I wasn’t trying to flirt, just, you know, maybe we could be friends.”

“Friends don’t lie to each other, Deacon,” she said.

“Ok, ok, no lying. Ask me something, go ahead.”

She looked up at him with her brow furrowed. “Why are you here? Why are you dedicating your life to synths when you could just go out there and forget about all of this, live a normal life?”

Ah, so she wanted his C.B.E. The three great motivators; caps, beliefs, and ego. He tried to come up with an answer she’d believe. It wasn’t the money, what a joke. So did he lay it on thick with the bleeding heart talk, how he was here to fight for those who couldn’t fight for themselves? Should he come up with some tragic history where Institute goons came for his best friend, his wife? What would she think if he told her it was a power trip, sneaking around undetected, helping the underdog right under the Institute’s nose?

He’d been quiet too long. He needed to say something, anything. “I feel useful here,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who you are, just what you can do, how you can help.”

She gave him a crooked smile. “Thought you were gonna say you like to play dress up.”

He smiled. “That’s what keeps me around.”

 


	2. Sort've a Utah Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit exposition-heavy but the next few bits will hopefully not be. The mission is not really the main bulk of this fic tbh it's just how I imagine Sole and some companions would cope, by throwing themselves into the next thing to distract themselves from life.  
> As always, comments make my day. Thanks to everyone who's reading this.

They always eat dinner together now, all of them who are left lingering at Sanctuary after their reason for coming together is obliterated. Their numbers are dwindling; Preston was often traveling with supply lines or visiting other settlements, having taken over much of the responsibilities of the General to give Sole some time to come to terms with what had happened. The Brotherhood guy had disappeared. Deacon had never gotten to know him in any personal sense but he wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t have a couple guesses as to why. No one asked after him. Cait was off in Goodneighbor snuggling up to Magnolia and doing odd jobs around town, or else hanging out at Bunker Hill. He was sure he would never see many of thse people again. Still, those who remained stuck close together, as though they could stop time and live in the frozen snapshot of the life they had created as it slowly crumbled.

The night of the fight is no different. Deacon flops onto a pink lawn chair beside the crate where MacCready is sitting with Piper and Nick Valentine, Sole and Hancock practically in each other’s laps opposite them in an armchair while Curie fusses with the pot of stew over the fire. She’s taken to cooking. She says it is fun to experiment with something that has such little consequences.

“‘Sup,” said Deacon, having been the last to arrive. His voice is thick as though he has cotton balls in his mouth because his jaw and lips and the entire left side of his face has swollen, his cheek puffy and pushing his lower lid up into his eye. He thinks it looks like he is seizing, like that Diamond City synth in the noodle shop so long ago given away by a twitching eye. No one can see his beneath the glasses, though.

“Jesus Christ, MacCready, you maimed him,” said Piper.

MacCready doesn’t look sorry, but he doesn’t look mad anymore either. He’s heard worse than what Deacon said to him, probably from himself. Deacon knows self-loathing when he sees it.

“Well, maybe next time he’ll think before he runs his fat mouth,” he mutters.

“No,” said Sole, and they all go a little still at the steel in her voice. “We c-can’t start turning on each other. I know we didn’t — not everything is...fine, or fixed, no m-matter how much I wish it was. B-but...after everything, we sh-shouldn’t be at each others throats just...just b-because we’re tired, or hurting. We’ve all got our differences, I won’t tell...tell you how to work them out, j-just, please, try.”

  
“Well said,” Hancock mumbled, looking at her face like he was completely besotted, and it would be sweet in a sappy kind of way except for how painfully obvious it was that he was seeing right through her, was staring at nothing at all, just the deep darkness of the night outside their little ring of light and warmth. Their hands were tangled together between them. Sole gives his hand a squeeze, runs her thumb along his bony knuckles, faint concern making tiny wrinkles at the corner of her mouth. He comes back into focus enough to give her a smile and squeezes her hand back. The wrinkles fade as she smiles and again he can see thoughts, he must be a goddamn mind reader, she’s telling herself, _there he is, not gone at all, he’s right here and everything will be ok, this is just a rut, it happens._

All he knows is, it takes a hell of a lot of jet to make a ghoul that high.

Deacon is perceptive. He notices these things. He files them away and keeps them pressed safely in his brain. These are all good people. He doesn’t feel bad about cataloguing them because he would never use any of what he sees to hurt them. There isn’t a reason to, not anymore.

An errant memory of digging up his file on MacCready and using it to get the man to throw a punch floats across his brain. He squashes it.

He doesn’t want to deceive these people. They are his friends and friends do not lie to each other. Though, he thinks that they might not be his friends without a little guile on his part.

“The stew is ready,” said Curie, hesitantly. “I spent the day gathering plants and herbs with Dogmeat, but I am not sure if the result will be anything like what I had in mind…”

“I’m sure it’ll be great,” said Piper. “If you’re anywhere near as good a cook as you are a doctor.”

Curie seemed to flush at the praise. She busied herself with laddling the stew into mismatched pots and cans, passing them around the loose circle.

“Sole, wasn’t there something you wanted to tell us about?” Nick said.

She nodded. “There is, but...first, I j-just wanted to say that, well...I’m really grateful for everything you’ve all done. And I want you to know that I’ve always g-got your backs, whether you stay in Sanctuary or not. I don’t want anyone to feel...like there’s any kind of pressure, one way or another. That being said, if you’re up for it, I think I’ve found something of interest to...to everybody. One m-more trip, all t-together.”

“If there’s caps at the end of it, count me in,” said MacCready.

“There’s m-more than caps,” said Sole, quietly, and pulled two holotapes from her pocket. “I found th-these on the road, a while back, after—after everything.”

They knew what she meant. After the Institute, when she and Dogmeat had gone back to her old vault, finally taken her husband out of that cryo chamber and given him a burial. The burial she should have been able to give her son, but, well. When she came back she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring anymore and she had slept a full day straight. When she woke up she came outside, turned on her pip-boy’s radio, and dragged the first person she saw, which happened to be Nick Valentine, into a slow dance while music from another world pumped through the tinny speaker on her wrist. She’d been more or less ok again, at least to the degree they’d always known.

“Found them in a b-bunker, beneath an old crumbled building. The first one is the original message. It’s a...an invitation. To some kind’ve...secret settlement. It’s old, but, not so old that the place might not still be around. At some point, somebody d-decided to try and collect together the best of what we have left—I mean doctors, and tradesman, and musicians, anybody with a skill or talent worth preserving. They called their p-place Haven. They had a lot of resources—I guess there was a wealthy b-benefactor at some p-point supplying Protectrons and turrets, that sort of thing, and a b-b-bunch of...of puzzles and traps. The p-planning goes back pre-war...somehow, th-this p-place was well-preserved. More than the rest of the world. They didn’t want to be isolated, so they sent out these tapes. In return for your trade, and for...for p-passing it on to others, you could live there, protected, and benefit from everyone else’s skills. It was a sort of last push back against a world that only values your brute strength or how handy you are with a gun. To p-preserve some semblance of pre-war life.”

“Sounds a little elitist,” said Hancock.

“You would say that,” MacCready said with a huff. “Sometimes to keep a good thing going you gotta keep some people out. That’s just how it is.”

Hancock was too agreeable, or too high, to do anything other than smile and shrug.

“Not as much as you might think,” Piper said, ignoring MacCready. She’d clearly already been briefed. Deacon didn’t know how he felt about that. “You couldn’t buy your way in. They just wanted to preserve humanity’s progress. There’s this whole long bit about how when the last violinist or electrician or oncologist dies, we lose more than just one person. We lose a bit of our humanity, because collectively all our abilities add up to who we are, or something. So it was merit based, and your skill didn’t need to fit any kind of requirements. They didn’t judge what was worthy or not—if you were a sculptor or a physicist, either way you were valued because what you could do was important to who we are, as people.”

“Progress,” Hancock sighed. “Is that worth preserving on its own? Progress got us here, sister.”

“I know,” she said. “But even if you don’t buy all the idealism or whatever behind it, you have to see the practical benefit of finding this place. Sole thinks—and I agree—that we could all benefit, maybe the entire Commonwealth. There’s a list of many of the talents available—that’s what they call all the skills and services, I guess. Curie, there’s so much here that you just might not find anywhere else. There’s a huge library, a giant database full of history and literature and art. They have an ex-Institute scientist who can do all kinds of helpful things for synths, and ghouls are employed like historians. They’re valued there, more than anywhere else, because they can remember what it was like, before.”

Hancock shrugged. “So can Sole, and she’s still got a pretty face.”

“Shut up,” Piper said, scowling at him. “I guess you don’t want to hear about the preservation of pre-war drugs, then. Nope, you don’t want anything to do with all the neat pharmaceuticals they’re experimenting with. I’m definitely in. This could be the story of the century. Just think of how many inaccuracies we could clear up, if we had access to primary sources!”

“How’ve they kept this so quiet?” Deacon asked.

“Better than you guys did, using the name of your secret society as a password," MacCready muttered.

Sole shrugged. “The trail’s g-gone cold, they stopped sending out holotapes and clues a while b-back. From what I can tell they sent out recruiters to find suitable people willing to make the journey, and word spread through underground channels. They spread myths about themselves, too, so that if you’d heard of them you weren’t sure it was real or n-not. Sort’ve an El Dorado situation.”

“Pre-war reference, sweetheart,” said Nick, smiling.

“Sorry. Sort’ve an Atlantis situation.”

“Like a sort’ve Oasis situation?” said Piper.

“Now hang on, weird guy a while back in the Capital told me that’s a real thing,” said MacCready.

“I think more like a Utah situation,” said Deacon.

“Utah is real, dumbass,” said MacCready. “It’s a state.”

“We can’t be sure,” said Deacon.

“We really can, though,” said Piper.

“Who’s to say? I guess we’ll never know,” Deacon said.

“What is on the second holotape?” asked Curie.

“Oh, right. It’s the travel log of the g-guy I got the tapes off of. He was...well, dead when I found him. Had been for a year, if the last entry in the log is anything to go by. I guess he found the original tape in an old m...metro, in the pocket of a feral.”

“Maybe they recruited him,” said Hancock, snickering. “Feral ghouls, those are usually the oldest. Poor bastard lost his mind before he could get there and went around eating corpses with Heaven in his pocket.” He dissolved into quiet laughter that was only a little unhinged.

Nick reached over to pat his knee and deftly slid the canister of jet from his hand. Hancock didn’t seem to notice. “Maybe try and slow down a little.”

“Bet it wasn’t a feral. A tape like that, it meant something to somebody. I’ll bet he was a raider, killed somebody in a settlement for it,” said Piper. “Then took off on his own.”

“Christ, you’re a bunch of morbid suckers,” said MacCready, lighting a cigarette. “What else that second tape say?”

“Whoever this guy was, he proves how far Haven went looking for recruits. He was originally from the West Coast, but he found the tape in the Capital Wasteland.”

“That’s not so far,” MacCready mumbled around his cigarette. Deacon watched the smoke curl from his mouth when he took a puff. MacCready glanced at him but Deacon kept staring because no way could the other man tell where his eyes were looking, not with the dark sunglasses on. MacCready stared for a second before flicking his gaze away.

“There’s not much else interesting on this second tape,” said Sole. “He f-followed the t-transmission from the frequency g-given on the invitation when he g-got in range. That’s what makes me think this is worth checking out. These clues, they were recent. The signal wasn’t automated, b-because it changed every so often. Someone alive was sending it, reading off bits of news, giving clues on how to find them, talking about what sort of p-people they had there. He almost made it...it’s b-barely a week’s walk from here.”

“Pretty elaborate set-up,” said Deacon. “What’s the catch?”

“Catch is it’s a trap,” grunted MacCready.

“Why go through all the trouble?” asked Deacon.

“I don’t know, but if I was a raider, I’d—” MacCready cut himself off with an embarrassing, squeaky little breath, a hiccupy catch in his throat. He blushed. Deacon stared. It was satisfying and fascinating, watching him trip over himself trying to put some distance between who he was and who he’d been. More than that, it was endearing.

Deacon cut that thought off at its root. Where had that come from? He was tired, that was all. He was just having a bit too much fun watching the guy who’d punched him out just hours ago make a fool of himself for no reason. It didn’t mean anything. He was always digging too deep into stuff like that. It meant nothing at all.

Still, Deacon was interested in this line of conversation, so he took pity on MacCready and continued the statement as if nothing had happened. “If I was a raider, I’d love the idea of easy targets coming to me, doing all the work themselves. But do you really think raiders would put this amount of effort, this much thought into something to score a bunch of junk off desperate piano players and old-world science dweebs? I don’t think so, not when I could organize a raid on a settlement or just frisk caravans with much less effort for a greater reward. Raiders don’t play the long game.”

“Somebody like the Gunners might,” MacCready grumbled.

“To what end? So you think a bunch of Gunners got together to make some utopian propaganda all so they could score a bunch of indentured servants? That doesn’t make sense. And honestly, if that is the case, I don’t really see a problem with it. Gunners offer protection in exchange for services. If I’m a post-apocalyptic lute player with nothing but a ten millimeter to my name, I’ll sign myself up to be a Gunner court jester, no problem.”

“Yeah, I bet you would,” said MacCready.

“The catch is getting there,” said Piper, interrupting their scenario. “It’s very isolated, very fortified.  It’s on an island, and...and the water you have to cross, right along the coast, is incredibly irradiated.”

“A real glowing sea,” said Hancock.

“Exactly. It’s nearly as b-bad as that. The war wasn’t the only source of radiation—all that carnage led to massive meltdowns at nuclear reaction facilities. All the waste is still...still emitting radiation over there, under the water.”

“Lovely,” said Piper. “Well, we can rustle up some hazmat suits and rad-x. I say we go for it. We’ve got nothing to lose.”

“Except our lives,” muttered MacCready.

“If we did make it to this Haven, how do we know we would be allowed in?” asked Curie.

“I play a mean kazoo,” said Deacon.

MacCready snorted and quickly covered it with a cough. Deacon grinned into his bowl of stew.

“Well, you’ve got enough talent to get in twice over,” said Piper, smiling at Curie. “Between the medical know-how and the fine cuisine.”

The flirtation went right over Curie’s head. She smiled at Piper, polite but not reassured. “I am not sure if my cooking is quite at such a level, but thank you, that is very sweet.”

“Great, between Deacon’s kazoo playing and Curie’s hubflower soup, no way we don’t get in,” said Hancock.

“I’m sure we’ve got enough to offer,” Sole said, authoritatively. “It hadn’t even...crossed my mind that we wouldn’t be let in. B-between all of us, there’s just no way we won’t.”

“I like your confidence,” said Hancock. “I’m very into it. Can’t say I’m quite there myself on this, but I’m into it.”

“It’s going...going to be pretty, uhm, hard to get to,” said Sole. “Probably dangerous. I guess it’s in the middle of this...this labyrinth, full of puzzles, or something. Challenges, or trials, they called them. If you...if you don’t want to come, you don’t have to, obviously. Don’t feel pressured. It’s just...I just felt like I had to mention it. It’s n-not too far, and...and I know you’ve all g-got, uhm, lives to return to, n-now that the Institute’s gone, but...but if you’re interested in traveling together, b-before you go back to them...”

Valentine sighed. “I don’t know, Sole. Any chance I can talk you into a quiet retirement? You’ve done so much for the Commonwealth already. I hope you’re not doing this out of some misguided sense of heroism.”

“Sounds like her,” mused Hancock.

Sole smiled and blushed. “No, just...just curious. If it’s true, we’ll have found something really...really special. If not, well...then quiet retirement, I guess. We can all...all go our own ways, or, do whatever. Just...one last trip.”

“I’m in,” said Piper. “I’m too young to retire. I...I’m not ready to go back to Diamond City. A trip like this might keep me writing for a good long time, who knows what we’ll find out there.”

“I would also like to join you,” said Curie. “This is exactly the sort of exploration I have been waiting so long for.”

“Why not,” said Hancock. “Goodneighbor will still be there when we get back...probably...provided Kleo hasn’t staged a coup and burned the place to the ground.”

“MacCready…” said Sole. “I thought that, m-maybe...maybe it would be a g-good place, for you to take D-Duncan, if you...if you were serious about moving him here, to the C-Commonwealth.”

MacCready took a sharp breath, staring at the cigarette in his hand. He’d smoked it down to the filter but was still trying to get one last puff out of it. “I...yeah. I mean, how can I...I’ll do it. I don’t—Duncan’s safe where he is, I figured I’d stick around here a little while longer before I went back anyway, make sure things are, you know...going smoothly.”

“I’m sorry, Sole, but I think this old synth has had enough action for a while,” said Nick. “I’d like to get back to Ellie. She tells me the work is piling up. Life didn’t stop while we were busy with other things.”

“I understand, Nick, don’t worry,” said Sole. “D...D-Deacon?”

“You want me along?” he said.

Sole looked at him like he’d just made a particularly corny joke. “Of...course, you dummy. How are we supposed to get in without our kazoo player?”

MacCready groaned. “Great, now it’s a thing. It’s gonna be a whole thing now, Sole, he’s not gonna let it go, it’s gonna keep coming up.”

“What the fuck is a kazoo?”  said Hancock, listing to the side, leaning against Sole’s side and staring up at the sky.

MacCready scrubbed his hands over his face. “Oh, brother.”

“Really?” Piper said, raising a brow at him. “What are you, twelve?”

Deacon leaned back into the lawn chair, the plastic squeaking beneath him. He looked at MacCready, his profile lit by fire. He wondered about the growing sense of wrongness inside him and outside him and was overwhelmed for a moment by how large it had become while he was looking the other way, how it loomed right over his shoulder and breathed down his neck.

“We won’t g-go right away,” said Sole, her voice wavering and far away, detached somehow from him. “We sh-should all take some time to recover, or tie up loose...loose ends, if we can. Get everything in...uhm...well, as close to order as we can.”

He felt nauseous, felt a tug in his gut. Time was pouring down on him. The air around them was becoming thick like syrup and running in waves and suddenly they were all strangers, moved mechanically. He didn’t recognize a thing, nothing was dear to him and nothing consoled him. He heaved himself out of the chair and walked numbly into the nearest house to find an unclaimed bed and lie down until this passed.

No one had to know. Come morning he would be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He's not gonna be fine. :,)


	3. Leaving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well my friends...thanks for sticking through this angst...there are some (hopefully?) humorous parts ahead, a bit of light banter between pals one might say. Thanks for reading, as always comments are much appreciated and provide me sustenance in these trying times.
> 
> I hope you're all having a good time out there. Writing this story is a good de-stressor for me after a long 2am shift at Ye Olde Coffee House. Much as I love makin lattes for all the weary late night travelers, it's nice to have something fun and relaxing to return to afterwards.

Once he’d found Glory crying by herself in the catacombs. His heart clenched and without thinking he went to her.

He hadn’t meant to sneak, but he startled her all the same.

“Jesus, Deacon,” she swore. “Don’t do that, you creep.”

“Just keeping you on your toes. What’s got you down?”

“What’s got me down?” Glory’s eyes were red and watery, tear tracks clear from the grime on her face. “Well, gee, let me think. Are these tears coming out of my eyes, or fucking coolant? And why does it matter? I’m so fucking angry, all the time, and I don’t want to be angry at you, but sometimes I am, because what did you do, to deserve being a person, and who did I screw over in a past life, that I’m just some _thing_? No matter how much work we do, I’ll never live to see a world where I’m anything other than a thing, because we live in a piece of shit wasteland full of bigoted assholes and I never had a chance to see anything different, everything green and good is dead already and I just got here! I’m four years old and I’m already too tired for this shit.”

He sat down beside her, hesitantly pressed his side to hers. “That’s pretty heavy.”

  
She gave an ugly, harsh laugh and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “No, Deacon. That’s just life, I guess.”

“You’re not a thing,” he said, quietly. “You’re a person. You’re Glory.”

“I’m a synth, Deacon,” she said, miserable as he’d ever heard her. This was early on, before she was all vinegar and fire. She was recently freed and confused and already so much older than she should be. “I’m a robot, a machine.”

“Glory,” he said, just to say her name. He was new at this, too. Not at working with the Railroad, but comforting. Or maybe it wasn’t new at all, maybe it had just been far too long. “I’m, uh, not a philosopher.”

“No shit.”

“But...being a person, that’s not the same as being a human. Humanity, or personhood, that’s something you can claim for yourself. You don’t have to...to strive for it, really. I think if you want it, you’re there. You’re not human, but you are a person, more than a lot of humans, more than me by a longshot.”

“What do you mean?” she said, looking at him with her brow crinkled. She didn’t know him well then. He wouldn’t have said something like that if she had, but he was just coming out of the tail end of a low spell and doing anything he could to bring her out of her own.

He knew he could trust her. Glory didn’t have people, not outside the Railroad, and she didn’t have a choice about them. She had no motives other than to survive and, if she embraced their cause, to help other synths, same as him. There could be no ulterior motives, and thus such little risk in speaking more openly than he ever would with another human.

He hesitated. “If I asked...if I asked you who you are, would you know what to say? You don’t have to answer if that makes you uncomfortable.”

“Why would that make me uncomfortable? I’m Glory, that’s what I’d say,” she said. “I’m a synth, and a...a person, I guess. I’m a fighter. I’m myself, that’s...isn’t that the answer?”

He nodded. “You’re a person alright. No doubt about it.”

She scrunched her nose like she suspected he was playing some kind of practical joke. “So, what? That makes me a person? And if I asked you, what would you say?”

He felt his stomach twist. Something was lodged in his throat, some circuit jumped in his brain. “Don’t ask me.”

“What do you mean, don’t ask? You just asked me, that’s not fair. Are you making fun of me, or something?”

“No, not at all,” he said, standing. “I just wanted to help, if I could, but—but maybe you should continue having this talk with someone else.”

“But it’s easy,” she said, getting upset, as though he’d handed her personhood and was now snatching it away. “If we’re the same, if I’m like you, then you just say, I’m Deacon, I’m myself, I’m a person.”

“I’m Deacon,” he said, voice hollow, feeling absolutely sick deep in his core. “I’m myself. I’m a person. There.”

“I don’t understand the way you act,” she said. “See? I don’t get it. Because I’m a synth, because someone built me to do a job, not to be a person.”

“That’s not true,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry that I’m getting this all wrong, I was just trying to help, but I’m not the right guy for a pep talk, ok? Maybe we’re the same after all, because I don’t get it either, I don’t get that question, I don’t know what to say, and that’s why you’re a person and I’m not,” he said, breaths coming heavy, too heavy. He’d lost control faster than he could afford and quickly loosened the tension in his shoulders, brought his breathing back to a calm, controlled rhythm. He was getting sloppy. He’d have to do something about these urges to throw some kind of tantrum before it got in the way, before Desdemona or Carrington noticed.

Glory looked cowed and he instantly felt sorry. It was the first time he’d let himself get so worked up in front of someone from the Railroad and he felt shame heating his face because he’d been trying so hard, to be good, to be someone they wanted on their side. He needed to be on someone’s side, needed them to be the good guys, to take his hand and guide his bullet to the bad guys because the wasteland was all shades of grey and he couldn’t take that.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not yelling at you, I’m not mad. I shouldn’t be talking to you this way.”

“It’s ok,” she said. “I know you’re not mad at me. Does...do all humans feel like that?”

“I don’t think so,” he said, her naivety opening something up in him, something he’d never dared expose even a tiny bit in a long long time to anybody else. “I used to think we all did, but—but I don’t think so anymore. I think I have a…” He pressed his hand to the center of his chest where he felt an actual, physical ache, like his lungs were constricting or his heart was dissolving sometimes. “Forget it, I don’t know what I’m saying. Point is, you don’t have to worry. You’re the real deal, kiddo. Top marks. You’re the valedictorian of personhood, mayor of people town, the whole shebang.”

“At the Institute, I heard about some synths that had...had malfunctions,” Glory said. “The ones they made, right before me—they didn’t get their heads all right. They were mostly ok, but they had little...they called them hiccups, when those synths would hit a snag in their programming, or something, and just sort’ve be missing something, some cue, about how to act or think or feel.”

“Maybe I’m one of those,” he said. “Maybe I’ve been lying all along and I’m a gen 2.5, perfectly good except for a screw or two loose. Just don’t let anybody else know, I’m undercover.”

“Well, that’s alright,” she said, looking calmer now that she felt she understood again. “They were mostly ok.”

“That is good enough by far for me,” he said, and then he took a hacky sack out of his pocket and taught her to kick it back and forth between her heels. She laughed, and laughed, and the sound made him feel light and good so that he could forget about the conversation and how embarrassed he should be for having said all of that nonsense. He wanted to keep making her laugh and look at him like he was someone she almost knew.

 

* * *

 

 

Deacon woke in the middle of the night to the deadly certainty that they were trying to get rid of him. Maybe it wasn’t so specific. Maybe not him, exactly, but that would be the result. This place, Sanctuary—they wouldn’t all stay here. Nick Valentine and Piper would go back to Diamond City, probably bring Curie with her. Hancock was clearly missing Goodneighbor and if he left Sole would follow because what else could she do? MacCready had a kid tucked away in the Capital Wasteland somewhere and it was long since time he go back to him. It was just Deacon who had no one, Deacon who would be left alone here in this shell of a neighborhood.

Final mission or not, it was all just postponing the inevitable.

He packed his bag and left, snuck away before anyone could notice. He wouldn’t let them leave him like that. He’d leave first, so that when he looked back he could say he’d been alone again because he chose it, not because he’d been left behind like some useless junk they’d picked up along the way.

It had always been a good thing, before, to have no one.

A lot of things had been different, before.

He didn’t look back as he crossed the bridge.

 


	4. Salami Joe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for you all to meet someone very near and dear to my heart, someone I've been waiting to introduce to you for quite some time...my friends, it's the man, the myth, the legend...it's Salami Joe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to say a big thank you to everyone who is reading this, and especially to those of you who have left me such kind and motivating comments! It really means a lot to me to know that people are enjoying this story. :)
> 
> A lot more MacCready in this chapter and in the chapters to come...which I'm very happy about because he is honestly so fun to write. 
> 
> I'm doing my best to strike a balance between the silly and the serious in this fic because I think that's an important part of the tone of Fallout and of life in general honestly so I hope I'm doing ok.  
> (Also if you want feel free to come interact with me on tumblr @chellacfic.)

He wandered for a while, until he got tired of only catching a couple hours of sleep a night and living off skinned mole rats and Cram. Then he went to Goodneighbor. He’d always liked Goodneighbor. It was easy to be anonymous there, to be anyone he wanted or no one at all.

He arrived in town in the rags of a drifter and under the pretext of getting a room at the Rexford while he bartered what goods he’d found outside. 

He didn’t do any bartering that day because once he was in his hotel room he realized it wasn’t a pretext. He was no longer a Railroad agent, no longer a spy, at least not at the moment, and that was a whole mess he wasn’t ready to unpack just yet. It wasn’t a lie or a costume, not really, not any more than anything else. He was a nameless drifter with a bag full of junk and no place to stay.

He lay in the bed until it got dark and then he went down to the Third Rail so he could get drunk enough to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

Something was different about Goodneighbor, something he only noted after a week of staying there. People were starting to get to know him, or to feel like they did. He got little nods of recognition at the Rail. Holly at the Rexford groused about him coming in drunk every night but it wasn’t just her bad temper; she was teasing him. Kent Connolly smiled and waved when he went into the Memory Den and Deacon thought if he stayed here much longer the ghoul might actually work up the nerve to strike up a conversation.

He wondered how long he had before Hancock came back, and what he’d do then. Nothing, he guessed. The mayor probably wouldn’t recognize him anyway.

It was around this time he saw MacCready come into town and make a beeline for Daisy’s shop. Deacon followed and listened from the shadows outside, unable to stop himself. 

MacCready looked a little worse for wear, scruffy and disheveled, his expression pinched with tension and worry. His gun was strapped to his side and his bag was heavy, clinking with ammunition. He spoke easily to Daisy and Deacon realized they were friends.

He tailed MacCready as he went into the Third Rail and then got a beer and sat near the lounge so he wouldn’t miss MacCready when he came out. He wasn’t one to pass up a good stake-out opportunity.

While he waited Deacon listened in on the conversation between two ghouls seated on the low couch nearby.

“You see that?” said the one wearing a trilby. “That merc’s back. He better not bring any Gunner attention here again.”

“Thought that guy was long gone? Heard he took a job with that kid who helped Connolly, cleaned up his act.”

“I guess not,” said the other ghoul with a shrug. “Guess old habits die hard.”

“Wonder if the mayor should think about hiring him. You know, security.”

The first ghoul rolled his eyes. “The mayor, don’t even get me started, god knows what he’s been up to…”

MacCready came out a while later and had a murmured conversation with a ghoul lurking in the corner of the bar. “Hey, you tell the usual guys I’m back in town, alright? I’m looking for work.”

“You do good work, MacCready, but the usual guys think you’re unreliable. You skipped town, nobody’s heard from you.”

“Just tell them, alright? They either need a gun or not, geez. And who’s that bum over there? He new?”

“That? Oh, that’s just Salami Joe. He’s taking a break from running with a caravan, came into town to rest and trade. Drinking Charlie out of whiskey, though.”

MacCready nodded and then he was walking towards Deacon and he didn’t know if he was ecstatic or if he should run. There was something thrilling and illicit about being recognized, caught wearing another man’s skin in front of everybody while only MacCready saw right through it, something that sent a faintly exhibitionistic tingle down his spine that he quickly snuffed out because it meant nothing but trouble.

“So, Salami Joe,” said MacCready, looming over Deacon with feigned nonchalance that failed to hide the malice in his eyes. His voice was too loud, he was going to attract attention. “You know, that’s funny. You got a brother? ‘Cause I could’ve sworn there’s a guy who looks just like you who’s due for a little chit-chat.”

“I’m an only child,” said Deacon.

“Why don’t we step outside? People are starting to stare,” said MacCready, smirking at Deacon’s obvious discomfort with the attention.

Deacon stood and followed MacCready out of the bar and into an alley.

“Salami Joe? Really?” said MacCready.

“That’s what my mama named me,” said Deacon.

“What are you doing here?”

“Here to rest and trade. Life on the road really takes it outta you.”

“Ah, cut out that garbage, Deacon! I know it’s you! You’re getting sloppy. Same face, same stupid sunglasses, same—why are you still doing this?”

“I’m not Deacon.”

“Yeah, I know, you’re Salami fricking Joe.”

“I’m not Deacon any more than I’m Salami Joe. Get it?”

“No. No, I really don’t. Look, honestly I don’t care if you wanna run around telling everybody you’re a super mutant. But you made Sole real upset. _ Really  _ upset.”

“What?”

“You snuck out in the middle of the night without saying a word to anybody!” MacCready said, flinging his arms out. “What was she supposed to think? That you went for a walk and got picked off by raiders, or fell in the river and hit your head and drowned? Or that you just didn’t care, about her, or the settlement, or anything, that you never had, that it meant so little it didn't even occur to you to say goodbye? Tell me if I’m getting warmer, because I really gotta know!”

“I didn’t think it mattered. It was obvious we weren’t all going to stay there. Everyone had somewhere else to be.”

MacCready seemed a bit at a loss. He shook his head. “Geez, Deacon. She might just be the only person on Earth who thinks there’s a halfway decent guy behind all the pathological lying, and you just threw that away, like it’s nothing. She’s something special, you should know. Guys like you and me—you only get so many people who’ll give you a chance.”

Deacon felt himself edging very close to an emotional outburst and had to take several deep breaths before he continued. “Wow RJ, I had no idea how much you cared about my wellbeing. Look, I figured I’d leave while it was still a choice. It wasn’t anything against the boss, nothing personal. Gotta admit, though, I figured you’d be with your kid, not hiring yourself out here again.”

“Don’t turn this around on me,” MacCready snaps. “It’s—it’s none of your business, when I go see my kid.”

“Sure.”

“I told everybody that’s what I’d left to do, ok? I left Sanctuary with my bag packed for the trip, but you know what? The whole time I knew I was lying, to my own face! And the best part is, they all knew it too, I could see it on their faces, they knew I wasn’t gonna go back. And it felt awful. Guess that’s how you go around feeling all the time.” 

MacCready gave a strangled laugh and grasped a handful of his own hair. “Everybody knows the truth is, I’m afraid of my own kid! Sure, I’ll tell Sole it’s ‘cause I want to be a better man before I go back, somebody worth having as a dad, but the real reason is I’m a coward and everybody knows it. I can’t take it, even thinking about it makes me sick, when I go back and the kid doesn’t recognize me, has no clue who I am, and then he judges me—they do that you know, all kids do, constantly—or worse, when he asks where I’ve been, why I stayed away so long, I won’t have a thing to say.

They stand there for a minute, MacCready panting and hiding his face in the crook of his elbow. Then Deacon thumps a hand heavily onto the other man’s back. “Let me buy you a drink.”

Despite the tension and antipathy wrapped like barbed wire between them, people nearing rock bottom have a way of gravitating together. Without having once been honest with each other, not really, they were both sharp enough to know that there was no one around who could better understand without anything needing to be said.

 

* * *

 

 

MacCready is a maudlin drunk. Or maybe it’s just that he was feeling sad while sober, so many shots of whiskey and half a beer in he’s beside himself. He’s practically laying on their table in the corner, nursing his warm beer while Magnolia sings something sultry and heartbreaking. 

“She’s so beautiful,” he says, staring at the singer, choking up.

Deacon pats him on the back. 

“What am I gonna do,” MacCready said, whimpering. “How did I get here, what is my life, oh my God… And  _ you _ ...of all the people, there’s nobody around but you, whoever that is, because you’re scum too and I can’t hardly stand showing my face to anybody else, ‘cause they’re all so  _ good _ .”

“Yeah. Tell me about it,” said Deacon, sipping his beer. He was just this side of buzzed; watching MacCready drink himself to tears made it all somehow less appealing. Besides, it gave him the upperhand.

“What do you know,” MacCready said, hiccuping. “You’re just a smug bastard who acts like he’s above it all.”

“If you say so.”

“Sole was so upset when you left, you—you big meanie. She—she cried. Hancock’s pissed at you, I bet. He took her out, said they were gonna go do something fun to cheer her up. Then Valentine went back to work and Piper dragged Curie off to Diamond City to show her that dumb newspaper and the stupid noodle stand, and, and what was I supposed to do? Go back to my kid? I can’t, I can’t, I wasn’t ready, but  _ Lucy _ , she said we could do it, but she’s not here and I can’t, I’m not ready to be a dad, I don’t even know what a dad is, I never had—I’ve never even  _ met _ one.” He was really crying at this point. 

“Er...let it all out,” Deacon said. “Where are you staying?”

MacCready shrugged. “I’ll go collapse in an alley. It won’t be the first time,” he said, with a bitter laugh. “Why can’t I be better?” he mumbled, almost incomprehensible because he was laying his face heavily on his fist, squishing his cheek.

“Alright, Rexford it is,” said Deacon, standing and tugging MacCready to his feet.

 

* * *

 

 

He doesn’t have the caps for another room, and while he’s not above frisking MacCready to see if he does, the other man is rapidly becoming a deadweight at his side and he suspects if MacCready’s desperate enough to be selling out like this already, he’s probably not exactly rolling in caps.

“Found a friend, Salami Joe?” asks Holly, raising a brow as he drags MacCready inside.

MacCready scowls. “Not my friend. Dumb mean lying bastard man. Salami Joe, I can’t believe you. Where are we going?”

Deacon has an arm wrapped around his waist, one of MacCready’s draped across his shoulders so he can help the other man stagger up the steps. “Watch your goddamn language. I’m trying to be nice to you.”

“You’re not being nice, you just wanna hold this over me so I owe you,” MacCready grumbled, then yelped and glared when Deacon relaxed his hold on him and he tripped on the stairs, banging his shin.

“Sorry, Mac. Had no idea you were such a lightweight. Should’ve guessed, since you’re so pint sized.”

“You’re such a jerk,” MacCready huffs. “Lemme go, ‘m fine.”

Deacon gets his door open and promptly dumps MacCready on the ground.

“This is my hotel room, so...try not to vomit everywhere? Thanks,” says Deacon, tossing him the blanket and pillow. He doesn’t feel bad about making MacCready sleep on the floor. The other man really shouldn’t have gotten this drunk in the first place, but now that he is, Deacon knows he’ll have no trouble passing out wherever.

“‘M not gonna vomit,” MacCready says, scowling. “‘M tired.”

“Want me to read you a bedtime story?” says Deacon.

It was a joke, but MacCready is already fumbling in his bag, rummaging around in it until he pulls out a rolled up comic and throws it at Deacon’s head. It smacks him in the face.

“You’ve got good aim for a drunk,” says Deacon, trying to figure out what’s happening. MacCready has already flopped onto the ground, lying on his stomach wrapped tightly in the blanket with his face in the pillow.

It’s a goddamn Grognak the Barbarian comic. “Did you throw this at me for a reason?”

“Read,” MacCready groans, voice muffled by the pillow.

Deacon’s eyebrows feel ready to climb off his face but he keeps his voice level as he opens the comic. “I’m gonna do voices.”

“I know you are.”

“Ok, just warning you. Just making sure you know what you’re getting into here, because if you want me to read to you, I’m not gonna half-ass it, this is gonna be me, channeling the real Grognak, ‘cause I gotta have some fun with this too, and I don’t wanna hear any complaining.”

“Read!”

So Deacon reads. He reads the whole thing, because it’s short and there are really only a few sentences per page, and because he’s into it, perfecting a voice for each character. By the end MacCready is snoring softly into the pillow, drooling out the side of his mouth.

“How unbelievably charming,” Deacon mutters. Then he turns out the light and sprawls across his bed, drunk enough himself that he doesn’t mind the missing blanket and pillow. He’s slept in far less comfortable accommodations, after all. Even MacCready’s snoring and mumbling isn’t enough to keep him awake.


	5. Insert Something Shakespearean Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look at the beginning of two uneasy partnerships. MacCready and Deacon try to make an honest living. Deacon and Desdemona completely fail to have a clear conversation because they insist on talking circles around each other and communicating entirely through shady literary metaphors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody, a bit of a longer chapter today. B)  
> Thanks again to everybody who is reading and commenting! Your feedback means a lot to me.  
> So...I'm very much into the idea of Deacon and Desdemona having this strange, tense relationship built on mutual respect and distrust that makes the other Railroad agents nervous. Everyone at HQ is very tired of listening to them show off to each other by speaking through allusions and have given up trying to make sense of their conversations. They clash because they have the same goal but very different, very strong ideas of how it should be achieved; however, they can't hope to achieve it without each other. Ah, workplace relations...can you tell I'm considering a job in HR?  
> The conversation at the end is about Othello. If you haven't read that...sorry. Neither has anybody else in the Commonwealth if that makes you feel better. Neither has anybody in the real world who wasn't forced to in high school.

Deacon was woken by MacCready shaking him. He rolled over and gave a lazy smile. “Morning, gorgeous.”

MacCready’s face was red and pinched, but that wasn’t exactly unusual. His hat had fallen off somewhere and his dirty hair was sticking up in every direction. “What am I doing in here?” he hissed.

“Well, let me see,” said Deacon, sitting up and putting on his sunglasses. “You got wasted at the Rail and begged Magnolia to let you sing. It wasn’t half bad, really.”

“What?” MacCready said, his voice getting high. “You’re not serious. Why didn’t you stop me!”

“Hang on, I wasn’t done. After that you got down on one knee and asked for her hand, very gentleman like, but she, unfortunately, had to let you down. She did it very tenderly.”

“You’re full of it,” MacCready said, relieved to have caught the lie. “I’d never. I wasn’t that drunk.”

“Believe whatever lets you sleep at night.”

“So...nothing happened, then?”

“Nah, nothing more than two bros sharing a very manly cry. We opened up, we boo-hooed a little bit, then I tucked you in tenderly as I would my own child and read you to sleep.”

MacCready looked at him, his nose wrinkled in disgust. Or maybe that was just his face. “You’re never gonna let me live this down, are you.”

“Oh, so you do remember.”

“I remember you being very entertained by your own sh—terrible impressions, yeah.”

“They weren’t terrible and you know it. You drifted off into the sweetest slumber of your life, buoyed by the angelic symphony that is my voice.”

“It’s too early for this,” said MacCready, scrubbing a hand over his face. “But, well...thanks for not dumping me out in the street, I guess.”

Deacon pressed a hand to his chest, feigning horror. “A gentleman such as myself? For shame, MacCready. What have I done to make you think so lowly of me?”

“Let me think.” said MacCready dryly. “You mean other than the lying, the manipulative baiting to make me angry, the sneaking out in the middle of the night like Sanctuary was some one-night stand you didn’t want to see in the light of day?”

“What a simile,” Deacon muttered. “You sound almost literary. You been reading something other than comics, RJ?”

“Don’t call me that,” MacCready snapped. “This is what I’m talking about. It’s like, it’s like you’re doing it on purpose. You want me to hate you, or something?”

“I don’t care what you think of me,” said Deacon, and instantly wished he could take it back because the statement hung there like a lead balloon, because as much as he lied that was a real ugly, pathetic little fib right there and they both knew it, judging by the awkward pause before MacCready spoke again.

“So, you...you got another job,” MacCready said, quietly. “I don’t know if the Railroad’s still employing you or if you’ve found some other shady bunch of idealists, but somebody’s asked you to come out here and act out this whole Salami Joe charade.”

“What makes you think I’m not self-employed? Maybe I’m my own boss now.”

MacCready snorted. “You like to think that, no matter who’s employing you, but...no. No, you’re not your own boss. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. Look, I’m no genius, ok—don’t say anything—but I know people well enough.”

“You don’t think I’ve got what it takes?”

“I don’t think you really care to.”

“Then what makes you think I’m employed?”

“Oh, come on. What else am I supposed to think? That you left behind everything just to come all the way out here and pretend to be some washed up trader?”

Deacon made no reply.

“You’ve gotta be kidding. You’re serious about all this?” MacCready was getting angry now. Deacon didn’t really know why. It couldn’t be because he cared about Deacon as a person. Maybe he just didn’t like it when people acted in ways he couldn’t understand. Maybe he felt slighted, as if what they had going back at Sanctuary was so sweet it was an offense to leave it behind. “Who are you kidding, man?”

“Everybody here. You, too, if I had the caps for a face change, or a cooler hat.”

MacCready looked at him. Deacon didn’t like that look. It was too resolved, like the little merc thought he had him all figured out and he wasn’t particularly impressed with what he saw. “You really think that, don’t you?”

Deacon stood so fast his head spun. His hands were clenched at his sides. “Well, I think that about wraps up this little pow-wow. I don’t know about you but I am plum out of emotional revelations and feeling ready to get back on the radstag, as they say.”

“I would’ve thought the Railroad’s master spy would’ve been a little better at changing the subject,” MacCready muttered, but got up all the same and grabbed his pack. He left the room and Deacon forced himself to wait several minutes before following so that they would not meet again on the stairs.

 

* * *

 

 

They meet again anyway. It’s not like he’s stalking the guy, no sir, those days are...more or less...behind him. It’s just that Goodneighbor, for all its amenities, is just not quite big enough to get lost in.

First he’d strolled into Daisy’s shop and it’s clear proof he’s getting too used to the drifter life that he doesn’t notice MacCready is leaned up against the desk until he’s already inside. It’s too late to slip out; they’ve both already seen him, so he stands there a second, suspended. Whatever they were talking about had made Daisy smile and MacCready’s eyes crinkle up. He had the beginnings of laugh lines that hadn’t quite had cause enough to stick yet.

“Speak of the devil,” said Daisy. “Your buddy here was just asking about you, Joe.”

“My—oh. Uh-huh. Only bad things, I hope. Us caravan guys gotta keep up our reputations, otherwise people start thinking they can get the drop on you.”

“I wasn’t asking about him,” said MacCready, indignant.

Daisy rolled her eyes. “Sure. Don’t try that look on me, Mac, I’ve seen it all before.”

Deacon cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it. I actually walked into the wrong store. I’m here for my date with Kleo. What can I say, the dominatrix thing? It does something to me.”

“Better not keep her waiting,” said Daisy. “Really, you’d better not.”

He doesn’t waste any time getting out of her store.

 

* * *

 

 

He wandered into the Memory Den out of habit and realized he had no reason to be in there. No reason to slide into a pod and pretend to be under, and as far as reliving old memories went, he’d put a lot of work into the opposite and wasn’t about to change that now. He guessed he could still do it for appearances. Was Salami Joe the sort of guy to slip down memory lane?  
No. Salami was a practical man. He was an in-the-moment man who thought the best things are happening right now, all the time; they can’t be in the past because that’s gone long gone, by the time it's passed enough to think about it’s already been annihilated.

He tried to think for a moment if there might be anything Deacon would like to remember and decided not to bother.

 

* * *

 

 

He doesn’t know he’s going to do it until he’s already in the Third Rail’s VIP lounge with his rifle propped against the wall behind him posting up in MacCready’s usual spot waiting for unsavories to come fall into his lap.

Well, not exactly. He has some boundaries after all, and they fall far afield of his bed.

MacCready comes in a half hour later, scowling and hunched, his entire posture screaming of tightly-wound discomfort. He should learn a thing or two about body language, Deacon thinks, and then notices his own leg bouncing up and down and presses the palm of one hand flat against it, something about the act comforting enough to make him stop.

He shouldn’t need comfort. He needs to get a grip.

MacCready pulls up short. “The heck are you doing here?”

Deacon shrugs, sprawls out on the couch, kicks his legs out wide and spreads his arms along the back of it. “Just looking to make a dishonest living, whatever keeps the Blamco on the table.”

“You’re in my seat.”

“Is it? What’ll it be then, sheriff, you wanna duel at high noon over it, see who’s faster on the draw? This town ain’t big enough for the two of us, that what you’re saying?”

“It’s really not,” MacCready grumbles, shifting from foot to foot. “Anybody come in yet?”

“Yeah, they asked for you. I told them you got yourself locked in a train car full of radroaches, but ole Salami’s got their backs now.”

MacCready scoffs. “Yeah, whatever, sure you did.”

“I’m starting to think I’ve dug myself into a sort of boy who cried deathclaw situation with you, and that’s no good. What if a time comes when I really need you to believe me?”

“And why would you ever need that?”

“I can’t imagine. But you never know.”

“Look, could you just go sit somewhere else? I need the caps, and it’s not like you’re gonna take the jobs anyway, if any even come.”

“Why’s that? The Rexford ain’t free, you know, I have to make money somehow, and poetry just doesn’t sell like it used to.”

“It’s not your style. You’re not that kind of guy.”

“What makes you say that?”

“‘Cause of all that Railroad snobbery, man. Just hit the road, you’re a...not totally dumb guy, you’ll figure it out. But this is my thing.”

“Ah, I see. You mean I have what passes for morales out here, so I won’t just go shoot whatever poor schmuck some lowlife walks in and pays me to kill?”

“Yep, there it is,” MacCready snaps. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You think you’re above all this, as if you’re somehow not in the same messed up, no-win situation the rest of us are.”

Deacon leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, boxing his posture and staring up at MacCready. “I don’t think you really know what kind of guy I am at all.”

“Oh, so you’re telling me you didn’t just pop out of the ground at Railroad HQ?” MacCready said, voice dripping with sarcasm. He’d cocked one hip, his hand resting lightly on it. Something about that sent a feeling too near fondness shooting through Deacon’s brain.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, grinning. “Alright, you need caps, I need caps. I may be able to help us both out, and a mutual friend.”

“I don’t know if I like the sound of that.”

“Sure you do, ‘cause it’s Daisy.”

“Daisy? She in some kind’ve trouble?”

“No, no...well...yes, terrible trouble, actually, ‘cause a gal like her, she’s grew up with shelf after shelf of classics, free for the taking, so who knows how she’s made it this long living off old comics and burnt copies of Hot Rodder.”

“Get to the point, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Literature, old sport,” said Deacon.

MacCready shuddered. “Don’t—don’t ever do that voice, or look at me like that, ever again. What was that supposed to be, your Codsworth impression?”

“Geez, tough crowd. Relax a little will you, it’s on the house,” said Deacon, kicking a canister of jet from under the couch towards MacCready. “It’s on the tables and chairs and bars and the beds, too, like little hotel mints on your pillow. You know they used to do that, Creaders, put little mints on your pillow?”

“Deacon.”

“We’re talking libraries, Macinator. We’re talking the Boston Public Library. We gotta clear it of super mutants, ‘cause they’re hoarding all the knowledge, we can’t let them get too smart, because where are we then? They can’t have the brains _and_ the brawn, that’s just not fair.”

“ _Macinator?_ Guess I don’t need to wonder who came up with all those stupid Railroad names anymore.”

“One, our names are awesome, and you know it. Two, get packing, I wanna leave early tomorrow.”

“You haven’t even told me what this supposed job is yet!”

“Daisy wants to return some books, maybe make some new checkouts. But the library’s full of mutants, so that’s not gonna happen until we sneak in there and clear it out.”

“Daisy asked you to do this?” MacCready said, sounding faintly hurt.  
“Well, I poked around a little, suggested that maybe she might have some work old Salami could take care of.”

“She’s paying you?”

“Caps may or may not change hands, if we do our job.”

“I don’t know if I want Daisy paying me…”

“What, you pick now of all times to get some scruples about where your caps are coming from? This is honest money, it doesn’t get much more honest than this, returning a little old lady’s library books.”

“It just doesn’t sit right with me, I don’t know.”

“Sole payed you.”

“And I gave it back when I realized she isn’t a complete waste of space,” MacCready snapped.

Deacon held his hands up. “Ok, alright. Then don’t get paid, or take half, tell her it’s a friendly discount from your neighborhood merc, do what you want. But are you still in?”

“Well...yeah, I’m in. If it’s for Daisy, I’ll do it. And you’re right about one thing, this is about as black and white a job as you’ll get.”

“It’s all black and white, my friend. Some people are just too scared to see it that way.”

“It’s really not, not at all. I guess it was easy to think that, when you’re working for a bunch of idealist synth liberators against a group so shady even raiders don’t like them. But you can’t seriously still believe it.”

“I can and I do. We all know it, it’s just a matter of not shying away from ugly truths.”

MacCready rolled his eyes. “Alright, I get it, I can take a hint. Once a Gunner always a Gunner, I’ve heard it before, don’t waste your breath. You’re good, I’m bad.”

Deacon shook his head. “No. Not at all.”

“Come again?”

“I don’t think that.”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“So where should I meet you tomorrow for our little excursion?”

MacCready sighed. “They teach you to change subjects in spy school? ‘Cause that was real subtle. Just...out front of the Rexford, I guess.”

“Early. Don’t oversleep, I will ask Holly for your room number, and you know she’ll give it to me. I’ll have Kleo pull you out of bed.”

“Alright, I don’t have a problem waking up, I don’t know why you think that,” MacCready huffed.

Deacon shrugged. “Maybe it’s my Railroad snobbery. Maybe I think too highly of my own incredible powers of perception, and I’ve got you wrongly pegged as the kind of guy who likes some shut-eye. Maybe it’s because not three nights ago you were passed out in my room sleeping so heavily I really can’t believe you’ve survived this long.”

MacCready groaned. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that.”

“I agreed to no such thing.”

“Then let’s do it now.”

“No can do. It happened, we bonded, I carried you tenderly up the stairs and gently swaddled you like a babe.”

“Shut _up_ ,” MacCready said, fighting a bewildered grin. “I’ll meet you tomorrow.”

Deacon gave him a salute and stood from the couch, grabbing his rifle. He left to pack his bag for the next day.

 

* * *

 

 

When Desdemona first introduced herself, he had to crack a grin. A genuine, delighted little smile, just a tad lopsided, tugging further up his face on the left.

(He kept that feature, and a few other ideosyncracies. It was important to tweak as little as possible with the face changes, to avoid a slow migration towards a face so generic it screamed mask to anybody who looked for more than a second.)

“How very Shakesperian of you. Commentary on your love for the other? Have you got a synth lover tucked away somewhere? Or are you just planning on being betrayed?”

“It pays to be aware of how easily that can happen, in this business,” she said, her eyes never once leaving him as he ambled around the tiny room they were in, just the two of them, and it was the first time they’d really talked one on one, but they were far from perfect strangers. During her ascension through the ranks he’d mostly been away working on projects so clandestine only he knew about them, had either given them to himself or had inherited them from the old members who’d all been wiped out, he the only living memory of an earlier Railroad. But they knew enough about each other because it was their job to know things, and of course his reputation preceded him here even if much of it was speculation, even if he’d planted some of the rumors himself. And she’d been groomed for this job, so whatever they knew about him, the old leadership, she knew it too.

He figured he had the upper hand, but still. He’d always wondered, had never quite figured out ever since he was first recruited just how much they knew, and how much of that initial knowledge was still floating around somewhere in a secret channel, in some terminal tucked away he didn’t know about but was always keeping an eye out for. The question wouldn’t let go, kept stalking him around the edges of the room as he picked up random objects to inspect just for something to do with his hands.

“Or maybe you’ve been framed,” he said. “Maybe your family wouldn’t approve of what you’re doing, but you’re loyal first and foremost to your own desires. Or else you already know it’s the thing you love that’s going to kill you.”

“Are you going to continue speculating about a name, or can we get down to business?”

He set down the broken clock he’d been inspecting and turned his full attention to her. She hadn’t moved other than to pivot minutely to track his movements around the room.

“But isn’t this business? I know why I’m here. You’ve got questions about what I get up to when I’m not on the clock. About my character. Well, you should. A woman in your position has to be careful. But I do my job. I do it well,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall. She needed a second in command and it had to be him whether she liked it or not because he knew too much, knew things even she wasn’t privy to, and he was the sort of asset which was safer to have on your side, kept close, than not. “It’s not just a name. You could have chosen any name.”

“I suppose you’re right. You were recruited in part for your observational skills,” she said, her voice perfectly neutral as she purposefully reminded him she’d been prepared for this, warned about him, had probably read some file on him, heavily encrypted and locked away somewhere. If he ever found it he’d destroy it. Or maybe she was just playing a game. “I suppose it’s only fair you do your own bit of speculation, since we’ve already done our share on your part.”

“And I guess you found nothing lacking?”

“If we did, it was in all the right places.”

He laughed, a bitter exhalation through his nose. He’d had such a similar conversation to this, when he’d first joined, seemingly a lifetime ago. His smile didn’t reach his eyes back then, which were blank except for a certain sorrow that was ingrained in his every expression and gesture so deeply he couldn't shake it. He had learned to disguise it with time.

“Not many recruits catch the reference,” she said, changing topics in a bid to get him talking again. As if he were some new recruit, as if the meager remains of their operation weren’t salvaged because of him. But there was a price to pay for the autonomy he demanded, for all the solo stints where he went dark for months at a time, and it was what little trust the Railroad placed in its operators. They’d gathered what background information they could on his history, his relationships (or lack thereof) and his skills. But some things could only be done accurately in person. That included psychological evaluations. She clearly had doubts about his fitness but knew she needed him in her corner either way.

“Well, you don’t recruit them for their scholarliness.”

“No, we don’t. Though it can be a bonus. What about your name, then? Why Deacon?”

“No deep meanings there. I’ve had others, this one was just a whim. Maybe I like the idea of being a subordinate. Little more wiggle room that way.”

She nodded. She liked that answer. He understood that this was an act of diplomacy. Whatever clashes of personality they might or might not have, they were better acting together than apart. She was a perfectly competent leader, but there were certain weaknesses to her position that he could fill, and her for him. They both knew he wasn’t cut out to lead, at least not in the visible way that she was. A leader had to have a face, but a man without one could be indispensable to her.

“Say you’d put a little more thought into it, wanted a name with something behind it. If you were to have one from the same play, what might you choose?”

He gave her an ugly, insincere grin. “I’m stuck between Clown and Soldier 3.” This was getting a little patronizing, but he’d play ball.

She raised a brow. “You don’t see yourself as more of a Cassio man?”

He nearly flinched. He knew at least a little of his history must have slipped through the cracks, trickled down through the leadership. Or maybe that was his own paranoia, reading a second meaning beneath her every word. “Why, is it my dashing good looks or because I’m so easily duped?”

She inclined her head slightly, as though apologetic. “Or is it because you’ve been the unwitting victim of someone else’s underhanded scheme?”

He feels his blood run cold and remembers when he was first brought into the Railroad, the terrible uncertainty that surges up again clear as day. He knows then that either she’s playing a game with him or she hasn't dug deep enough, that he needs to do a better job scouting new recruits than they’ve done with him. They don’t know what he’s done, or if they do they somehow consider him exonerated. Unwitting victim is not a way in which he’d ever describe himself.

No, he decides, looking at her face, she doesn’t know. Not the half of it. It was foolish of him to think that he (who he’d been, that person in the past,) could resurface. He’d dug himself into such a deep grave, cut himself so fully from his past, marooned that ugly little life. He couldn’t afford to let paranoia make him sloppy. If he started looking over his shoulder for the spectre of who he’d been, expecting him to catch up at any moment and demand his body back, someone would notice, someone would see.

“I’m more of an Iago kind of guy, to tell you the truth,” he said, watching her expression carefully for any minute shift. “‘Double knavery,’ you know. ‘I am not what I am.’”

She smiles and he thinks he is seeing her real smile for the first time and it is terrifying. She is letting the mask slip and beneath it is all teeth and she would not do so if she didn’t see the same in him, did not recognize that this is a meeting of two monsters at the heart of the best hope for the defenseless. Sometimes that’s what it takes. “Then I think we’ll work just fine together. Just fine, after all.”

He knows that he is in too deep to get out now. These are the people to whom he willingly handed his tether so many faces ago because he trusted them not to give him too much slack, to snap the leash taught and reel him back home if need be, because it’s about something bigger than his discomfort, it’s not his freedom they’re fighting for. Because at the time he had not trusted himself to be a whole person on his own and never quite managed to work his way there since then.

She’s just what he needs, a public face behind which he operates unseen, so he offers her his hand and feels a cool, empty sort of smile spread over his face like an oil slick. She showed him hers, and it was all barbed wire and broken glass, the kind of steel in her that would let her commit atrocities without batting an eye because their goals justified all. He showed her a mirror. There was nothing else behind it.

Desdemona faltered for only a second before taking his hand.

 


	6. My Kingdom for a Horse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deacon and MacCready go on a little jaunt to the library. Deacon has a feeling and MacCready doesn't have a clue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there everybody, I hope you've all been doing well. Thanks for reading and sticking with this fic, I have a lot more planned for it. To everyone who has been leaving me such lovely comments...I love you forever and you keep me warm through this long dark winter. 
> 
> As I begin to edit some of the much later content, I noticed some things I needed to tweak about the beginning. It's minor stuff. The Sole Survivor is now named and will be referred to as Shana. I thought it would be fine to leave her nameless and people could just call her whatever they'd named theirs or something but...it annoyed me.
> 
> Bookworm Deacon is my weakness and the library quest really got to me for some reason. It's one of the quiet little scenes you just sort of stumble across in the game, a story that's over long before you ever get to it.

MacCready is downstairs just a minute before Deacon but that is enough to irk him. He’s feeling irritable and needs to shake that off fast, shove it down deep, because where they’re going it won’t pay to act impulsively.

That was less of a problem, before, where he had what amounted to keepers, when Desdemona kept tabs on his every twitch.

MacCready smirks. “Look who’s finally up.”

“Oh, please. You got up early so you’d have time to check with Daisy that this is a real job and not something I made up.”

“Well, yeah, but I was still up first.”

“Alright, you win this round. One to zero, but we’ll see where the score stands by the end of the day.”

Deacon is used to talking when he has a travel companion. Shana never minded, because she wasn’t much of a conversationalist herself. She preferred to listen and pipe in occasionally with a question or joke of her own. She said she liked that he talked to her, made it less lonely, more fun. He knew that. He knew all the ways he needed to behave in order to endear himself to her, to get her fighting on their side, or at least not against them. He counted it as a success even though she ended up more closely aligning with the Minutemen in the end, because the Railroad still got what it wanted. Had they had her support they might have become the dominant faction, might have made moves towards becoming more above ground in their operations. But they were used to living in tunnels by now and maybe it was better this way; they were so much more comfortable working by proxy that the Minutemen were the perfect cover.

He wasn’t just talkative to get her approval, though. Or at least, not just to get it for the Railroad.

Not everyone was so accommodating of a little light travel banter, however.

“You sure your codename wasn’t Chatterbox?” MacCready said after her told another elaborate and admittedly embellished story of smuggling a synth through the Boston Commons.

“It was already taken,” said Deacon. “Come on, don’t tell me you’re one of those types who likes to wander for days without speaking except for the occasional grunt.”

“I’m not,” said MacCready, softening. “Just, sheesh, you’d think a secret agent would be a little more tight-lipped.”

“Only when it counts,” said Deacon.

“Ain’t that the truth,” said MacCready, and then there was no more time for talking because they were at the library and they needed to be silent.

 

* * *

 

 

They worked well together, neither could deny that. MacCready found high, hidden places to perch and take shots at distant enemies, distracting their fellows enough for Deacon to sneak right up close and dispatch them with his silenced pistol fast enough that he had time to duck behind a door or cabinet before the sound of the body falling alerted any nearby mutants.

It was the dogs that were the real trouble, because they could sniff him out. One cornered Deacon on the lower level, where he’d slunk down through a collapsed ceiling, and unloading a round of bullets from his .10 mm didn’t do much to deter it. It sunk its teeth into his arm and he couldn’t help but hiss, “Jesus Christ, _ouch,_ ” but then with a yelp the hound went limp and flopped to the ground, a bullet having zipped through the air from above and sunk between its eyes.

Deacon looked up and there was MacCready, peering down at him.

“That looks nasty,” said the sniper. “You have a stimpak?”

“We should save them for when this is all over.”

“It’s cleared. You got all the mutants on this level. While you were busy I cleared some turrets and a protectron from another room. If I’d stuck around that dog wouldn’t have snuck up on you...sorry.”

Deacon tried to hide his surprise. “That’s fine. I’ve worked without cover before, but, uh, thanks.”

MacCready offered a hand and helped pull Deacon back up through the collapsed roof. Then he took a stimpack and stuck it into the crook of his elbow, flexed his hand into a fist as he felt the drug seep cold into his veins. He watched the skin knit back together.

“We didn’t have big super mutant dogs like that back in the Capital,” said MacCready. “When I first got here, and got bit by one, I was sort’ve freaked, ‘cause I thought, hey, can these things transmit FEV?”

Deacon snorted. “Good thing for you they can’t. You ever seen a super mutant sniper? Didn’t think so.”

MacCready laughed. It hadn’t been a very funny joke, but Deacon is strangely glad all the same to have amused him.

They do a sweep of the library looking for anything worth taking back. Deacon can’t help but hide his mounting disappointment.

“You know, the way Daisy described this job to me, I sort’ve thought there’d be...books,” he said, bending down to liberate a mutant of his ammo. He never used to be much for looting, but Shana had got him in the habit of picking things up. He wasn’t as bad as her; she’d take anything that wasn’t nailed down.

“Yeah, well...paper didn’t have a whole lotta hope for surviving all this,” said MacCready, gesturing with one hand at the general desiccation around them.

Deacon sighed, his shoulders slumping a bit. He didn’t bother straightening them out. What was the point, why bother putting on a show? He was tired. “Idiots didn’t know what they had going for them,” he said. “You’d think maybe they’d have had some consideration for all us post-war suckers, you know? Maybe start printing the things on metal, carving them into cave walls like the bunch of neanderthals we are, before they went blowing the place all to hell.”

MacCready’s wary surprise was clear in his voice. “I can think of a few other things they should’ve bothered preserving first, but, yeah, man. I get that.”

They find the bodies in the last room they search, strewn like afterthoughts in the corners. Deacon’s breath catches in his throat when he sees them, and then he’s rushing to the terminal, reading feverishly through their notes, but it’s hard to focus on the screen, the letters keep wavering, and only when MacCready clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably behind him does he realize he’s tearing up. Not crying, not yet, but damn close, and even with his shades on its obvious in the tense line and slight tremor of his shoulders, the way his breath keeps hitching.

“Fuck,” he mutters, reaching up under the glasses to rub his eyes, hard, until little bursts of color explode across his blacked out vision. Then he says it again, louder, shouts it and pounds his fist onto the desk because the urge to destroy something, to take something precious beneath his bare hands and render it irreparable is strong and he does not want to do that so he hits his fist against what he can’t break. It’s all broken already; he can’t damage the world any further so he’ll keep trying to pummel it back into shape anyway.

He’s breathing hard and goes to lean against the wall, rests his elbows and forehead on it, boxes his arms around his head with his hands over his ears to create a small, dark little space where he can breath and not think and center himself. He doesn’t want to be centered. He wants to fly apart in a big messy explosion, so that this place looks like it should, like some terrible slaughter took place, because the quiet dignity with which the bodies are tucked away back here is too understated, is a mockery.

He realizes he’s muttering, a fast stream of nonsense because he has to let some of this poison out or it’ll kill him. “ _I hate this, I hate this, fuck everything, we can’t fix this…_ ”

He hears MacCready tentatively peck the keys on the terminal, reading slower at his own pace, and his dread is palpable, he’s thinking there must be a bomb beneath the building they’ve both triggered or that a band of Gunners is about to descend and wipe them out.

It’s much quieter than that, what took place here, but in a way it killed them all the same before they had a chance to know anything different.

MacCready makes an odd humming sound in his throat, like he wants to clear it but is afraid to interrupt the crypt-like silence of the library, the mad litany quietly pouring from Deacon’s mouth. He shuffles for a moment, then Deacon feels a hand rest lightly on his back. First he tenses, but before MacCready gets the wrong idea he lets himself shudder and relax, melting at the contact.

When was the last time someone touched him like that? For no reason other than to confer some small comfort, knowing there can be none, just to remind him they’re there and for better or worse so is he? A very, very long time indeed. The Railroad were not a touchy-feely bunch, all of them too traumatized, too paranoid for such ultimately meaningless displays of affection when there was real work to be done.

He realized not for the first time that he was lonely. Every time he remembered it took his breath away.

“Sometimes I forget,” MacCready says, almost whispering, “that your whole aloof jerk act is, well, an act.”

“Maybe not,” Deacon mutters. “Maybe that’s the real deal, and this is the act I pull once in a while to make people think otherwise.”

“Nah. You worked with the most radical bunch of idealists in the Commonwealth. Maybe you want people to forget that, but, yikes, you’re actually a real bleeding heart, aren’t you?”

“Oh no, you’ve got me,” said Deacon, his voice back under control. He turned away from the wall, MacCready’s hand falling from his back, and smiled, spread his hands. “My street cred’s ruined. What can I say, you’ve got me pegged. Maybe we should’ve tried recruiting you. Oops, too late.”

“Think I could’ve made the cut?” MacCready said, sounding at least a little curious.

Deacon shook his head. Before MacCready could voice his objection, he said, “Not for the reasons you think.” Then he uncurled his fist to reveal the key and he turned to open the door.

It’s like a tomb, something from the old-world, a shrine sealed up tight. Even their relatively light footfalls seem thunderous, sacrilegious.

MacCready isn’t one for pointless reverence, but he takes a hint from the way Deacon is practically tip-toeing, all but holding his breath as if he’s afraid to disturb even the air, and doesn’t say anything, tries not to touch anything.

“Here,” Deacon whispered, handing MacCready the key. “Go ahead and clear the storage room.”

“You sure?” MacCready asked. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m all about it, but are you…”

Deacon nods. “They want us to have it.”

And then MacCready understands that Deacon has every intention of following through with the terminal’s request that they take up the mantle of wasteland literacy and he barely keeps himself from smiling because now that the Railroad isn’t consuming every fiber of his being he thinks he’s starting to get a picture, starting to see that Deacon, in the absence of a prime directive, may be the kind to go around picking up hopeless causes he sees as good and worthwhile, however ridiculous they might be to anyone else, the way Preston picks up settlements and Shana picks up junk and, he’s not too proud to admit, every dispossessed misfit she comes across.

He goes into the store room and starts scooping stuff into his bag as quietly as he can and tries to shake the feeling that he’s robbing a grave. He’s never once felt that before. He finishes quickly and slips out to find Deacon messing with the giant wall of...well, computer stuff. MacCready’s really more of a lockpicking kind of guy, so he gladly stands back a ways and watches.

In the main room Deacon pokes around the terminal. He’s not too shabby with technology; a certain amount of know-how was required to be a good agent, but he’s no Nick Valentine. Nevertheless, he manages to get it up and running.

He expects to find a database, was already picturing the screen coming alive and presenting him with a list a mile long, or several miles—he knows only what he’s heard from ghouls and picked up from holotapes, has no idea just how much there once was. Either way, what he’s already imagining as he boots up the monitor is a wealth of reading material, far more than he could ever hope to get through in one lifetime, and he’s practically salivating. So when the monitor springs to life his heart stutters in his chest and he feels absolutely lovestruck and doesn’t care how ridiculous that is, is too enamored with this fantasy he’s let himself slip into, and doesn’t immediately register that the screen is full of gibberish, lines of bare code, scrambled numbers and letters and characters. It flickers, and then is blank save for the single, vertical blinking green line of the cursor.

He doesn’t immediately understand, or doesn’t want to. “No, wait,” he mumbles. “Where’s the rest of it?” He reaches forward and touches the screen, runs his hands along its edge as though looking for a secret lever or switch because that is a language he understands, is what he expects when things aren’t what they seem, but its smooth, and then he trails his fingertips down the screen itself, tracking lines through the dust.

“I think it’s busted, man,” said MacCready, and Deacon actually startles, spins as though he’d forgotten the other man was there. That’s concerning, in a way. MacCready would normally relish having gotten the upper hand but there’s something obviously unbalanced about Deacon right now so it just feels like he’s cheated.

“Maybe we can get Valentine, maybe he knows how to fix it.”

“I don’t know a whole lot about computers, man, but that...that thing is fried.”

“You’re a pessimist, of course you think that,” Deacon mutters, turning around to mess with the terminal again. “It’s not—they wouldn’t have died for it if there was nothing worth protecting on here. That doesn’t make sense, that’s totally just, like, unacceptable, I don’t believe it for a second.”

“Maybe without them around to upkeep it, it just sort’ve...wore itself out,” MacCready said, growing uncomfortable with Deacon’s increasingly frantic and obviously pointless attempts to get anything other than a blank screen to appear.

“Then they died for nothing, and everything they worked for and believed in is gone, and we failed them.”

“Whoa,” said MacCready, caught off guard, holding his hands up a bit before him as though to ward off whatever it was that was making the normally unflappable guy act so distraught. “It’s nobody’s fault, man, you didn’t fail them. It’s just...bad luck.”

Deacon ignored him in favor of pressing more buttons, seemingly at random now.

“It’s getting dark, man, come on, we should really—”

MacCready shut up and they both took a sharp breath at the sound of something whirring to life on the display. Slowly, a flash drive was ejected from a little slot on the side of the screen.

Deacon takes a minute to meet MacCready’s gaze, both of them astonished, before turning around and sliding the flash drive free with tremulous fingers.

“They compressed it,” he said, in awe. “This is everything, RJ.”

The nickname slips out like it’s perfectly natural. He’s said it before, but always with a hint of sarcasm, never like this, like it meant they were close. MacCready isn’t sure how he feels about it. Something about hearing it is nice, but it might just be the lack of the usual undercurrent of animosity and rivalry running between them.

He tells himself it just slipped out, because they’ve had a long day, because Deacon’s been unusual emotive for whatever reason and is acting less like a walking enigma than usual. Because nothing’s changed, not really, even if it feels like maybe it has, just a little.

“I, uh. I didn’t know you liked books so much,” said MacCready, flushing because, great, he sounds like a complete dolt, even to his own ears. “Reading. I mean, I didn’t know you were—that you could, that is, um.”

“You didn’t think I could read?” Deacon says, looking up from the flash drive at him, his eyebrows scrunching up, whether in amusement or consternation MacCready can’t tell. “You heard me read that comic. Yup, still not letting you forget about that.” Already his composure is back in place as though he hadn’t been working himself up into a panic just seconds ago.

“That’s different,” said MacCready, and he’s definitely blushing now, geez. This is why he gets so flustered around this guy—because other than a few rare, recent exceptions, Deacon keeps his face looking like a mask while MacCready turns into a bumbling, tongue-tied kid. It’s Deacon’s complete unflappability that does it to him, or rather makes him do it to himself. He feels like its a competition he knows he can’t win but keeps idiotically throwing himself into anyway like a lunatic, trying to keep a straight face longer and inevitably failing.

He tries to reign in embarassed tone in his voice. “I meant I didn’t know you could read good. Er, um, well. Read well. Sh...shoot.”

Deacon has the nerve, the audacity, to be openly amused by his fumbling. There’s genuine mirth on his face, a familiar, smooth smile creeping up.

“Well, gee, cowboy,” he said. “If I’d known intelligence was the way to your heart I would’ve shown off a lot sooner.”

“Yeah, laugh it up,” MacCready growled. “There’s that Railroad snobbery again.”

Deacon’s smile fell a bit. “Wait, what?”

MacCready crossed his arms. “It wasn’t such a weird thing to be surprised about, you know! Not everybody out here can! It’s not exactly the most prioritized skill.”

“Hang on, I wasn’t trying to make fun of you, or whatever you’re thinking. I mean, at least not how you think, it was just your face, you’re too cute, you kill me, really.”

“Aw, shut up,” MacCready grumbled, mortified.

“MacCready, can you...is this you getting mad because you thought I was making fun of you for not being able to read? I mean, I’ve seen you do it, so I don’t really know if that makes sense, but clearly I’m missing something here and it’s pissing you off, so go ahead and clue me in. Literacy does not a wise man make, or something.”

“Reading a comic is a lot different than reading, like, books and sh—stuff!” MacCready said defensively. “Most people can’t even read that much, so don’t go thinking you’re so much smarter than me.”

Deacon held his hands up. “I don’t. Really, I don’t, at least, not because I can read. Believe me, I’m well aware we live in a world where learning to aim and pick locks takes priority.”

MacCready won’t meet his gaze, instead looking down at his boots. “That’s right, don’t you forget it.”

“I guess there probably wasn’t anybody around to teach you in Little Lamplight.”

MacCready snorts. “You’d guess right. I’d like to meet the guy who’s idea that was, give him a piece of my mind.” Then he clams up and looks at Deacon, suspicion all over his face. “What is this? You getting me to talk about the past, looking for me to slip up and give you something you can hold over me?”

“No, geez, paranoid much?”

  
“That’s rich, coming from you.”

Deacon sighed. “And here I was thinking we might get to know each other a little, without one of us being drunk or...emotionally compromised.”

“Emotionally compromised? I can think of a couple other ways to put that,” MacCready said, but there was some humor back in his voice. “Well, you thought wrong, that’s enough standing around and talking. Let’s get back before it gets too dark, I hate travelling in the dark.”

“I know,” said Deacon, smirking and shouldering past him back into the library proper.

“ _I know,_ ” MacCready mimics, unable to help himself. “I’m _Deacon_ and I know _everything_ , because I’m a _master spy_ , look how _mysterious_ I am, and all I ever say is terrible jokes and cliche one-liners, and did I mention I’m a _master spy?_ ”

MacCready is well aware he sounds like a snot-nosed brat and doesn’t care. He does his best not to sound like that around anyone else because he’s young and, yeah, he doesn’t exactly cut the most imposing figure, he knows he’s just a little on the short side, and in his line of work he can’t give people another reason not to take him seriously, though sometimes it pays to be underestimated. But with Deacon he doesn’t care, the guy already knows about his unflattering sides, has a way of pulling them to the surface for his own amusement.

MacCready likes to think he can do the same.

Deacon stops and turns on him, and MacCready thinks for a second they’re about to be at each other's throats again.

But Deacon just smiles his serene, distant smile that gives nothing away and says, “Never change, MacCready.”

MacCready tries to swallow around his heart which has suddenly become lodged in his throat and finds himself unable to reply.


	7. Favors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy, Deacon, and Mac enjoy a quiet night in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, I'm so sorry for the wait! I hope you didn't think I'd abandoned the story. I've been quite busy with school as I just had my first exams of the semester. I've also been really working hard at my original writing because manuscript submissions are due for entry into upper-division creative writing courses...wish me luck. :,) And then my laptop broke so until I could sort that out I had to do all my work at the library.
> 
> So now that's all mostly squared away I had time to return to this story! Thank you so much to everyone who has left me such wonderful comments, your feedback really motivates me and it always makes me smile to hear you're enjoying this.  
> This chapter is slightly filler-ish but it's a quiet moment before the next couple chapters that are more action-oriented so I decided to keep it. I also realized during editing that it's almost all dialogue so oops but also you're probably used to that from me by now. 
> 
> Hope you're all doing well and thanks for reading!

They ended up walking home in the dark anyway because Deacon had to spend another half hour scouring the library for any legible books. He finds a fairly sizeable stack and MacCready doesn’t have the heart to do more than a little light whining because the guy has this sort’ve goofy, besotted grin on his face and MacCready thinks this might be his real, honest to God smile, and he looks like a dork, and somehow it’s sweet.

“Stop grinning like that, you look like ridiculous,” he grumbles.

Deacon straightens up from the fallen shelf he was crouched over, books clutched to his chest, and beams at him. “No can do, ‘Cready. I’m just too goddamn over the moon.” There’s something about the way he says that, in his usual pleasant, sort’ve monotone drawl that makes it funny.

“Yeah, ok, whatever,” MacCready mumbles, turning away so Deacon won’t catch the telltale signs he’s trying not to smile.

The guy is far too perceptive for his own good, but is still somehow the most dense person MacCready knows, other than maybe that Brotherhood loony.

***

Despite his protests MacCready ends up saddled with a big stack of books for the walk back to Goodneighbor.

“I’m not your pack mule,” he grumbles. “It’s one thing when Sole has us both breaking our backs hauling around freaking Giddy-Up-Buttercups, but you’re just pushing your luck.”

“Do it for Daisy,” said Deacon, and that was that.

***

The ghoul shopkeeper is beyond ecstatic when they return loaded with books. MacCready doesn’t miss the slight pained look on Deacon’s face when he hands over their stacks, but chooses not to comment. He also doesn’t say anything about the fact that Deacon did not make any move to return Daisy’s old books and still has both them and the flash drive in his bag.

“I didn’t mean clean out the entire stock!” Daisy said, laughing.

“Yeah, well, Salami Joe here’s got a hard on for literature,” MacCready said.

Daisy laughed. He liked her. She was never put off by his occasional...unique mannerisms. It had been put more bluntly to him as a complete lack of social graces, but she didn’t mind that he didn’t have manners no matter how he tried and even without the cursing couldn’t help but be vulgar. 

“Well, let’s all be grateful for that,” she said. “Dear, why don’t you take a couple with you then? I’ve got enough to keep me busy for quite a while, and we can trade when you’re done, or if either of us finds anything else worth reading.”

“Oh, no, that’s really ok...I mean, well...are you sure?” said Deacon, and it was as close to flustered as MacCready had ever seen him. Geez, this guy.

Daisy chuckled. “Of course, though I hope you keep me in mind next time you stumble across a good one.”

“Oh, definitely,” said Deacon, turning the books to look at their worn spines, running his fingers along them. MacCready isn’t really sure why he’s still hanging around, other than the fact that it would be awkward to just walk out.

Deacon takes two books from the stack and then freezes when he sees a slim volume that had been hidden among the larger novels. He takes it from the stack and looks at the cover, flips it open and scans a few lines. It’s got some gibberish title MacCready can’t make heads or tales of other than to guess it’s a name or some old-world word long out of common use.

Deacon sets the book on top. “You should read that one,” he said. “It’s good.”

Daisy looked at it and smiled. “I’ve enjoyed the Shakespeare I’ve read in the past, I’m sure it is. You boys take care now, and don’t forget your caps.”

MacCready would be lying if he said he hadn’t already taken notice of the two bags of caps sitting on the counter. He shook his head before he could change his mind and said, “No, Daisy, come on, it was a favor for a friend.”

Daisy shook her head, smiling fondly at him. “That vault-dweller really did a number on you, didn’t she? Go on, take them, I won’t think less of you for it. No need to play up the changed man act for me, I know you’re a good kid.”

“It’s not an act,” MacCready said, trying not to get frustrated with one of the few people who’d describe him as a “good kid” but also needing her to understand.

“It’s gonna have to be a no from me, too,” said Deacon. He hefted the books up in one hand. “‘Tis payment enough by far, my fair lady.”

Daisy sighs and shrugs. “Suit yourselves, but I’d feel better if you let me do something for you at least—and don’t argue Robert, it’s not about payment, it’s about saying thank you. Why don’t you stay for dinner? Least I can do is make sure you don’t go to bed hungry after walking all day.”

“That sounds great, ma’am,” said Deacon.

Daisy rolled her eyes. “Don’t you ma’am me, Mr. Drifter. You boys go sit over there, drag those extra chairs over to the table and get comfortable. I traded today for some Mirelurk eggs, so I hope you like omelets.”

“You know I’m not picky,” said MacCready, going behind the counter to arrange three chairs at Daisy’s little table. There was a small kitchenette tucked behind the counter, the chairs resting partially beneath the staircase leading up to her bedroom.

“Oh, don’t I know it,” said Daisy, preparing the fire. “Don’t know that you’ve encountered a wasteland critter you wouldn’t eat.”

“Hey, it doesn’t pay to be choosy out there,” said MacCready, flopping into his chair and leaning back. He groaned. “Geez, my back hurts. My knees hurt. I think my shoulder’s permanently screwed from getting knocked out of whack by the recoil on that monster of a rifle every day.”

“Ok, old man,” said Daisy, chuckling. “At least you’ve still got some cartilage left. Now imagine being over 200.”

“Eugh, no,” MacCready said, sprawling further back into the chair and resting his hands on his belly, his hat sliding down over his eyes. “How do you do it?”

“There’s a reason not too many of us old ghouls are out there on the road. The ones that are just got lucky, or else they’ve stopped noticing.”

“Yeah, well, I’m only twenty-two, I shouldn’t feel like this.”

“He whine all day?” Daisy asked, looking at Deacon.

“Oh yeah, you know Rob-o here, a real negative Nancy,” said Deacon, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.

“Don’t call me that.”

“What, a negative Nancy? Then maybe cut back on the griping.”

“No, the other thing. Enough with the nicknames.”

“Aw, but Robby, I thought we had something. I thought we’d bonded.”

MacCready was blushing and tugged his hat further down his face hoping to hide it. He didn’t know why Deacon’s teasing got to him. He’d admit to being a little...well, a lot easy to rile up, but Deacon was especially able to get under his skin. “Not that much,” he grumbled.

“Alright Mr. MacCready, I get it, you’re a big boy and too old for nicknames,” said Deacon. Daisy laughed. MacCready ignored them. He wasn’t above giving them the silent treatment.

Deacon sighed and sunk into the chair opposite him. “Hey, are you sleeping? Fine, I guess you won’t care if I tell Daisy all about our adventure then, no objections from you. So there we were Daisy, the last hope for wasteland literacy, two master sharpshooters against fifty mutants. We snuck past the first wave and took them down in seconds without making a single sound, like a pair of ghosts. Then we got separated in the ensuing firefight, and the next thing I know I’m cornered by the last eight of the suckers. What can I say, things get hot and heavy, I get carried away, start thinking I’ve got the strength of five Grognaks. I’m thinking, ok, I’m not gonna shoot my way out of this one, but I’ve talked my way out of bigger jams, maybe it’s time to turn on a little fabled Salami Joe charm.”

“Before I even get a chance to open my pretty mouth though, Mr. Bullseye MacCready notices a damsel in distress and, being the gallant gentleman that he is, proceeds to line up the shot heard round the Wealth, a real humdinger if I ever saw one. One bullet zips through five skulls and they drop like dominoes, and then, just as I’m about to bite the dust, it ricochets off a filing cabinet and downs the other three before I can figure out what I want my final words to be. And after all that he comes leaping down to me from above, coat flapping like the wings of an angel, and lands on the back of the slain mutants in time to catch me as I swoon from this display of absolute masterful marksmanship. What can I say, I’ve got a thing for a guy with a smoking gun.”

Daisy cracks up, and its obvious she doesn’t know what to say, is unsure about just how much of that account she’s meant to take seriously. MacCready cringes through the whole thing and is sincerely glad he’d dropped the Salami Joe act when they got outside of Goodneighbor because he could not have endured the fake accent and speech patterns all day.

MacCready pushes his hat up just a bit and mutters, “That didn’t happen.”

“Mac, do you know flattery when it knocks you upside the head?” Daisy said.

“Do I know what now?” said MacCready, sitting up straighter.

At the same time, Deacon said, “Whoa, who said anything about flattery? That was just a truthful account of our little excursion. Trust me, growing MacCready’s ego is the last thing I wanna do, he’s already top heavy with that big head of his.”

“Hey,” MacCready snapped, finally looking at him.

Deacon smirked. “So you’re talking to me again?”

“Oh, grow up. I didn’t realize it was a competition.”

“So...I take it you two have known each other a little longer than I first thought, then?” said Daisy.

“Er...yeah,” said MacCready, giving Deacon one last glare before leaning back in his chair.

She comes to join them at the table with three plates of oily omelets. MacCready immediately tears into his. He’s not one for putting on airs, and he’s got no reason to pretend he’s got the faintest idea of what’s meant by table manners in front of these two, one a close friend and the other...well, somebody whose opinion he doesn’t care about.

“How did you meet?” Daisy asked, cutting her omelet into dainty squares. MacCready was amused to see that Deacon had waited until she began eating to start cutting his food up as well, immediately copying her mannerisms. He wondered if the mirroring was a conscious bid to win her favor or if at this point he didn’t even realize he was doing it.

“Mutual friend,” said Deacon, and left it at that.

MacCready was annoyed. This was his friend who had let them into their home and cooked them dinner and Deacon was still defaulting back on being a cagey pain in the neck, as if telling her who that friend was would betray some national secret. “He means the Vault 111 lady,” he said around a mouthful of eggs, ignoring the way the admission made Deacon’s hand tense minutely around his fork.

Daisy sighed, passing him a scrap of cloth. MacCready took it and stared at her, tilting his head and scrunching his eyebrows. “You’ve got a little something,” she said. He wiped his face.

“That woman has a habit of picking up strays. But I guess you turn out all the better for it. She’s the one who helped you get that medicine I sent over to the Capital a little while back, isn’t she?” asked Daisy.

Deacon perked up. Great, he was clearly using this as an opportunity to snoop. Not that he hadn’t already gathered that story a long time ago.

“Yeah, she is. Great lady. I owe her a lot more than I could ever pay back.”

“Well, not everyone expects payments. I know you grew up differently, but back before the war, between friends at least, relationships weren’t...transactional, to the degree they often are now.”

“Yeah, Sole’s definitely old school like that,” said MacCready, not wanting to get into the whole she’s-actually-a-200-year-old-ice-woman thing.

“She’s a bit of a Robin Hood,” said Daisy. “How’d you end up meeting her, Joe?”

Deacon cleared his throat. “Pack of raiders back in Hangman’s Alley was threatening our caravan route—she cleared them out, no sweat, five minutes flat, not a scratch on her. As a show of gratitude, and also to honor the ancient code of caravan ethics, I left to travel with her for a while, be of service where I could. She introduced me to RJ here and, what can I say, the rest is history.”

MacCready was conflicted. On the one hand, he hated that spending any time around Deacon meant becoming an accessory to a multitude of pointless lies. He didn’t see the use of them and was tempted to rat him out, but something held him back. Was it really worth the hassle? The lie was fairly harmless, and what did he care if Deacon wanted everyone here to think he was some two-bit trader? And it wasn’t exactly as if MacCready were a paragon of honesty himself…

“So,” said Deacon, looking at Daisy, “I don’t wanna pry, but word gets around, especially if you run with a caravan, and a guy can’t help but be curious. You get much trouble with synths around here?”

Daisy looked surprised by the question, but not offended. “You heard about Sammy, huh?”

MacCready kicked Deacon under the table, but he ignored him. Deacon nodded. “Ammo and armor aren’t the only thing people expect from a caravan. It’s not just a stereotype that we’re gossip—collecting talk is half the job.”

“I can understand that,” said Daisy. “Well, I don’t know what you heard, but it’s true that a couple guys found out Sammy was a synth and, well...they didn’t take kindly to it.”

Deacon kept his voice neutral. “I thought Goodneighbor was a haven for the disenfranchised?”

“It wouldn’t be if the Institute got in here and started messing it up,” MacCready snapped. Sheesh, sometimes this guy was really a broken record.

“You don’t know Sammy was going to do anything,” Deacon said, finally looking at MacCready. “You can’t go around punishing people for crimes they haven’t committed, no matter how much ‘evidence’ you think you have that they will.”

“That’s real cute, Dea—Joe. Maybe next we can start going around saying people are innocent until proven guilty, huh?”

Deacon barked out an ugly laugh. “Do you even know how ironic what you just said is?”

“No, because I’m just some illiterate Capital hick, but I’m sure you’ll clue me in.”

“Whoa, friend, don’t be so down on yourself. You’re some  _ partially literate _ Capital hick.”

“So I take it you boys don’t want to stay for dessert?” said Daisy, loudly.

MacCready was immediately cowed, his glare fading to sheepishness. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Daisy waved a hand. “Don’t apologize, kid, I live in Goodneighbor, that little tiff hardly registered. I just know you’re a hothead and there’s no reason to argue when you’ll regret it later. To answer your question, Joe, it is. But that doesn’t mean folks around here don’t have their own prejudices. Uniting against an outsider, in this case the Institute, helps keep tensions down in a place like Goodneighbor where the most you have in common with your fellow citizens is usually a nasty chem habit and the fact you don’t fit in anyplace else. Most people around here know not all synths are out to do the Institute’s dirty work, and those that are don’t have a choice. But that doesn’t help you sleep at night, especially not when you’ve led the kind of lives most people around here have. Sammy...there were a lot of reasons that went down the way it did, and I’d rather not get into it tonight. Just know that you haven’t got anything to worry about—no one’s gonna try anything with you. Now do you want Snack Cakes, or a sweet roll?”

MacCready is not too proud to admit that his less-than-stellar attention span glossed over a bit during that little monologue until she got to the food. “Can I have a sweet roll?” he asked.

“Did you listen to anything I just said?” asked Daisy.

“Um...synths...they’re people, too...of the people, for the people, everyone’s welcome in Goodneighbor?”

“I’m just kidding, RJ,” she said, getting up. He followed her to the kitchen and leaned against the wall, grinning as she got out three rolls. 

“Wait—what do you mean, nobody’s gonna try anything with me?” Deacon said.

Daisy turned, raised a brow. “I mean exactly that. You’re safe here. Well, about as safe as anywhere these days, I guess.”

“Daisy, does everyone here think I’m a synth?” Deacon asked.

MacCready couldn’t hide his surprise. “What? Why’s everybody think that?”

“Calm down,” Daisy said. “I can see I misjudged this situation—I thought you brought up Sammy to get a feel for how synths are treated here because you weren’t sure about your own safety.”

Deacon kept his face blank, but MacCready was sure he was currently debating whether or not to stick to the original lie, or if this new one would be more fun, or lucrative.

“How many people think that?” he finally asked.

“I don’t know, kid, I haven’t taken a poll. Just an impression I got from some comments Fahrenheit made in here the other day, that’s all.”

“And what makes you think I am?”

There came a point where a lack of expression was more disconcerting than not. Now was one of those times. The more time MacCready spent with him the more obvious it was that Deacon’s disguises depended on his having a clarity of purpose. Right now the mask was still on, but it was as though the top layer had slipped off, the one where he painted false expressions. The complete lack of affect was more jarring than the artificial emotion he usually conjured up.

“Just little things,” Daisy said. “You come into town out of nowhere, you’ve got no folks…”

“That describes a lot of people in Goodneighbor.”

“You’re right, and that’s why I can’t really tell you what it is, just a feeling, an impression. Don’t take it the wrong way, it’s nothing against you, we’ve all got something. Most people who wind up here only do because there’s nowhere else—look at us, I’m a ghoul, he’s an ex-Gunner—if you’re a synth, it’s not a big deal, it just seemed like you had to have something, and it wasn’t a chem habit or a gambling problem, so it just seemed to add up.”

“You can’t tell,” said Deacon, his voice still an unnerving monotone. “You really, really can’t tell. It’s arrogance to think otherwise. Anyone in this town could be one, and we could all go to our graves never knowing.”

Daisy held up her hands. “Alright, point taken. I won’t bring it up again. But don’t get touchy like that if someone else does, they’ll take that as proof, however idiotic that is or not. Now let's eat.”

They made small talk over their sweet rolls. Deacon seemed to snap out of a trance, instantaneously jumping back to life, as though he’d flipped a switch and brought Salami Joe’s personality crashing back into focus. MacCready tried not to find that concerning.

Afterwards he lingered outside Daisy’s shop to have a smoke and stopped Deacon as he headed back to the Rexford. “Wait—I just, uh...I still need caps, and...and I think we made a pretty good team today, so...so if you wanted to join me on a job tomorrow, you can. That’s all.”

Deacon nodded and cracked a grin. “Knew you couldn’t resist my charms forever.”

MacCready just rolled his eyes and hoped he wouldn’t regret this.

 


	8. Don't Worry Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helloooooo everyone! Sorry for the very long wait, I'm sure you can imagine how it gets with courses and work and life in general, but here it is, another chapter, wherein I reveal my latent love/hate for The Beach Boys, among other things. Special thanks to PoisonJack for leaving me many wonderful comments that gave me the little push I needed to edit this and post it up tonight! Hope you enjoy.
> 
> (Also...if you're the kind of person who likes sci-fi comedy and cartoons...that TBS show Final Space is actually really fun. I thought it would suck based on the advertisements but. It's cute, it's silly. Good content after a stressful day.)
> 
> As always your comments/critiques are much appreciated, and thank you all so much for reading! <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is uh...a spicy one.

They met again outside the Rexford and this time Deacon was first down the stairs.

“Looks like we’re tied,” he said. “Now where’s today’s field trip?”

“HalluciGen,” said MacCready, with all the authority he could muster.

Deacon still laughed. “Oh, this’ll be good. You’ve been talking to Fred Allen, haven’t you?”

“Look, it’s slow around here, and I don’t think either of us wants to go around assassinating people for whatever new Bobbi-No-Nose is sitting in the warehouse,” he snapped. “Fred Allen’s paying decent caps, all we gotta do is go shake the place down, pick up whatever drugs we find, and bring them back.”

“How much is he paying?”

“Four hundred caps. We’ll split it down the middle.”

Deacon whistled. “That’s more than I expected. How’d you swing that deal?”

  
MacCready gave him a look out of the corner of his eye. It was the look he couldn’t shake, the look of a shifty, cap-hungry merc with sticky fingers. It was written into the structure of his very face, which Deacon knew he must find irritating. Given how narrow a line MacCready was now trying to walk, Deacon just thought it was funny.

“I may have had to...persuade him, a little,” said MacCready, watching Deacon’s reaction.

Deacon nodded. “Just a little honest extortion. Hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”

MacCready smiled, a real smile, which on him meant a thin-lipped, sly little grin that showed off his mouth full of crooked teeth. “Exactly. There are some perks to having your reputation precede you. I hardly had to say a thing and the guy was tripping over himself to sweeten the pot,” he said, snickering.

Deacon slung an arm across MacCready’s shoulders. “That’s the spirit. You know, sometimes I forget that, what with the benefits of having no reputation at all being so amazing.”

* * *

 

They walk until it’s late afternoon and when they arrive it’s clear it won’t be as simple as walking in and out. The sound of gunfire can be heard from inside. The two of them crouch behind a car to decide what to do.

“Allen didn’t mention Gunners,” MacCready hisses, kicking at one of their bandanas, recently left outside by the looks of it.

“I don’t see any other entrances,” said Deacon. “I’m usually a backdoor kind’ve guy, but it doesn’t look like we have a choice.”

MacCready snickerd. “Backdoor kind’ve guy.”

Deacon stared at him. “Wow. You really like reminding people you grew up in a town of nothing but twelve-year-olds, don’t you?”

“Shut up, mungo,” MacCready said, still snickering, clenching his fists intermittently around his rifle, as though working himself up for the inevitable fight.

“I’m not even going to ask.”

“Yeah, better not,” MacCready said, moving toward the door. “Some other time.”

The firefight was...a little underwhelming. There’s some kind of thick green fog filling the air of the building and the Gunners are sloppy, don’t even seem to notice them until they start shooting. They make quick work of the ones in the entrance room and then Deacon immediately pulls a bandana from his bag and ties it around his mouth and nose.

“What is this stuff?” MacCready said.

“I’m sure it’s just laughing gas,” said Deacon. “Nope, nothing sinister about a noxious green fog, or the alarm going off. Still, grab that guy’s bandana, maybe we can filter most of it out.”

“Fricking Fred Allen, didn’t warn me there’d be a fight, now I gotta wear a stupid Gunner bandana,” MacCready groused, but tied it around his face all the same. “Look, if this stuff is poisonous, I’m out. Should we just bail?”

“Not yet,” said Deacon, intrigued. “Those guys we just fought were still up and running.”

MacCready bends to pick up a carton. “Drugged water. Hey, think if I bring this I can ask Fred for another fifty caps?”

“If not we can get a drinking game going in the Rail with it.”

MacCready snorted and shoved the carton in his pack.

They slunk through the facility, having no trouble picking off the Gunners they encountered, the element of surprise on their side, as well as the effects of whatever was in the air. They paused at the corner of one hall to watch two of the Gunners get into an argument and start going at each other with combat knives.

“What in the world?” MacCready whispered. “I’ve seen raiders kick each other around, sure, but if you try that with Gunners, you’re out. Those guys are killing each other.”

“Maybe it’s the gas,” said Deacon, dispatching the Gunners with two neat shots from his silenced pistol. No reason to watch them stab each other to death. “Maybe whatever drugs they were researching here leaked, and it’s making them more aggressive.”

“We better hurry,” MacCready said, and darted down the hall. 

They find a Gunner trapped in a glass-walled room pleading with them to set her free, half out of her mind and barely comprehensible. MacCready is visibly disturbed by this and Deacon would be lying if he said he didn’t find it distressing as all hell as well. But Deacon has no problem lying so he keeps his feelings to himself and unlocks the door. She imediately bolts from the room and out of sight before either of them can level a weapon at her, crying and incoherent.

MacCready makes a move to go after her and then stops, turning on Deacon. “Why’d you let her go, man, what the heck?”

“What are you talking about? She was out for the count, let her try her luck out there. No threat to us.”

“She’s a Gunner!” MacCready spat, getting right up into Deacon’s face where he can see the gap between his front teeth and the pink of his tongue behind it, how his pointy little incisors are set forward in his mouth. “In another week Preston will have to kill her when she goes after a settlement, but not before she ruins plenty more lives.”

“If I don’t have to use violence, I prefer not to.”

“What bull!” MacCready says, and then he pushes him, not too hard, but a firm nudge with the palms of his hands against Deacon’s chest. “Letting something happen is hardly better than if you pulled the trigger yourself.”

Deacon didn’t feel like himself. There was an irritating buzzing in his head that made the world too bright and sharp, made MacCready ugly and hateful. “Well, maybe she’ll reform,” he said, with as much mockery as he could. “Go out, settle down, start a family. Grow some tatos.”

“You bastard,” MacCready hissed. “No matter how much I think we—that you might not be such a bad guy, you’re always gonna have that in mind, always gonna throw it back in my face. Well, I call bull, I see through it. Whatever you’ve done has gotta be worse, to make you go cutting your face all to hell just ‘cause you can’t stand seeing your own ugly mug every day.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Deacon said with a sickly smile. “You gonna punch me again, MacCready? Go ahead. Give me a free face scrambling, you have no idea how much I deserve it, the things I could tell you, go ahead, you don’t even need to feel bad about it.”

MacCready was a second away from doing so, fist clenched and pulled back, before he gasped and staggered back a step, bending double and leaning against the far wall, arms wrapped around his stomach as though he’d been sucker-punched. “I don’t want to,” he wheezed, voice strained. “I don’t mean it, Deacon, or, well, I do, you're a real jerk, but I don’t wanna _ kill  _ you over it.”

“Kill me?” Deacon said, and realized he was also panting, that his vision had gone red and was slowly fading back, though it remained more greyscale than was normal. 

MacCready flinched as though stricken and peered up at Deacon from beneath his hat guiltily. “I don’t mean it,” he repeated, forcefully. “I can’t help it, I don’t want to, I really don’t, I’m not like that.”

“It’s the air,” said Deacon. “It’s ok, it’s not you. You’ll feel back to normal as soon as we get out of here.”

“Maybe we should just go now,” MacCready said, straightening up and taking off his hat to slick back his hair and wipe the sweat beading up on his pale forehead. He looked washed out and sick in the green glow of the fog. “I don’t like this, it’s not me.”

“We’ve come this far, we should finish the job. I always finish the job,” Deacon said.

“Yeah, well, nothing is on the line here but Allen’s next trip, so I don’t think it ruins your record,” MacCready said, eyes darting up and down the hall. “Let’s bail. I’m gonna bail.”

“You’re not,” Deacon said. “You can do it, come on, pull yourself together. You need the money. You can’t travel all the way to the Capital without some funding.”

“You’re right, Duncan, I need the money,” MacCready mumbled, eyes still darting. He held his hat clenched to his chest, turning it in a nervous circle, long fingers bunching its rim and twisting. The motion was hypnotic. “I always need the money, there’s never enough caps, I don’t know where they go, it’s never enough, it never stops.”

“Snap out of it,” Deacon said. “You’re letting it get to your head.”

MacCready’s eyes snapped to Deacon’s face and narrowed. “You think you’re so much better than me. Well, what are you without your Railroad? I don’t get it, I don’t trust you, they aren’t totally disbanded, so why aren’t you hiding out somewhere underground with them?”

Deacon shrugged. “Trouble in paradise, it happens. We accomplished our main objective and work is slow right now. They’ll take me back, they’ll let me know when they need something.”

“What, will they leave you some railsigns?” MacCready said, with a high, unhinged giggle. He was suddenly bubbling over with manic glee, fingers turning the cap faster and faster. “Admit it, it was obvious enough that Desdemona chick didn’t trust you, the doctor hated you, and Glory—"

“Don’t talk about her,” Deacon said, and only realized after he’d done it that he had stepped forward to loom over MacCready, who cowered but continued to look up at him, the occasional laugh still dropping from his lips. His face was warped, everything was moving, slowly, almost imperceptibly, becoming alien and terrifying and this was something out of a nightmare, all of it.

“I don’t think so, it’s my turn,” said MacCready. “Glory Glory Glory, let me guess, she and the boss got tired of all the lying, the constant stupid, pointless chatter, all the bullshit you put people through just by being around, hm? They kick you out of HQ, tell you to come back when you get your head out of your ass? I bet they’d been waiting to do it for a long time, and with the Institute out of the way they took their chance because they don’t need you, they tolerated you as long as they had to but why keep you around, you’re one big joke, you’re just a bluff, there’s nothing there under all the lies, just shame over whatever terrible thing you've obviously done, that’s all you're made of.”

“Shut up,” Deacon said, and his fury was something cold that was sliding through his veins and had hold of his mind, sent an iron spike of pain and rage through his brian with every shrill blast of the alarm. “Don’t say another word.”

“Or what?” MacCready said, still grinning like this was some playground spat. “What’re you gonna do? You’re all talk, all you do is hide.”

Deacon barely heard him, was still stuck on a single memory of how her body looked, broken and tiny on the floor, trampled underfoot by so many uncaring feet. Of long white halls that didn't ever end, just faded into blackness below the earth. Tunnels that wound back on themselves like a snake eating its tail. “Glory is dead,” he spat. “You don’t even deserve to say her name.”

MacCready had the good sense somewhere left in his brain to look momentarily cowed, to shrink and balk at the icy malice on Deacon’s face. Then he said, “And you do?”

“No,” Deacon said, voice absolutely void of anything human. “I don’t. And that’s why if you believe anything, you should believe I’ll orphan your son if you don’t shut up.”

MacCready growled. “There he is. Showing your true face, huh? I knew all along you’re just the sort of heartless bastard that’s a dime a dozen out here. Well, I’d like to see you try, you lay a finger on me and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes and leave you here and nobody will ever come looking because you threw away the only friend you had, and if anybody finds you nobody’s gonna mourn because you’ve got nobody, you’ve got a face nobody remembers and the world won’t have lost a thing.”

With a sudden speed that left MacCready stunned and pressed against the wall Deacon heaved himself away and slammed his hand into the metal plating of the wall. The sound resonated, sent barbed shockwaves through the air and MacCready yelped and flinched, dropping his hat to cover his ears.

“If somebody would turn off that goddamn alarm so I could hear myself _ think _ ,” Deacon shouted, panting. “ _ Fuck! _ ” He slammed his fist into the wall again, and MacCready’s eyes went wide as saucers when he saw there was an honest to god dent left behind, and the state of Deacon’s fist, the skin already reddening and split open along the knuckles.

“Y-you’re hand, Deacon, I think you broke your hand,” he said, slowly feeling his consciousness get heavy, float back down from the ceiling to slip woozily back into his skull. He shook his head as if he could dislodge the panicky, fight-or-flight impulse clawing at his mind like a dog shakes off water.

“I think I did,” said Deacon, hollowly. “I can’t feel it.”

“‘S gonna hurt like a mother—er, fudger, later.”

Deacon cracked a familiar grin, a minute tilt of his lips. “I think...I’m good now. Are you?”

“I think so.” MacCready said, nodding, a little too fast. He felt wired. He forced his head to be still when all the movement sent a wave of nausea rolling over him. He bent very carefully to get his hat and took a second to lean against the wall when his vision blurred upon standing up. “For now. Let’s get those godforsaken cannisters and get the heck out of here. I ain’t leaving without getting payed, not after all this.”

Deacon nodded. They carried on.

“You should stimpak your hand,” MacCready mumbled, trailing along behind Deacon who was somehow managing to both sneak and barrel his way forward. 

“Later,” Deacon muttered, flexing his bloody fist. 

MacCready couldn’t stop eyeing him. Having the guy crowd up into his space like that had been...well, it made him realize just how reserved Deacon usually was. He didn’t think he'd ever willingly gotten into his personal space before. MacCready definitely would’ve remembered that, he thought, looking at the broad plain of Deacon’s back as he crouched to peer around a corner.

“You, uh. You’re a pretty solid guy,” MacCready said, his mouth running faster than his brain. He slapped a hand to his face. “Shut up, MacCready.”

“Talking to yourself now?” Deacon said, amused.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” MacCready said. Deacon stood and moved forward into another room. “What I mean is, like, that’s probably why you’re less affected, ‘cause, you’re bigger than me.”

“Stop looking at me,” Deacon said. 

“I’ll look wherever I want,” MacCready muttered under his breath, but turned his attention back to their surroundings anyway.

The facility was labyrinthine. MacCready’s head was already spinning, what with the directionless irritation festering like a hive of stingwings at the base of his skull and what was probably a growing lack of oxygen to his brain the longer he spent breathing in the fog.

“I hope you know where we are,” he said. “‘Cause we keep going down then up and I don’t have a clue.”

“There will be a monster at the center,” said Deacon.

“Wh...what?”

“Of the maze,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense otherwise. This writer guy, Chesterton, he said…’there is nothing more frightening than a labyrinth that has no center.’ But you wouldn’t bother building one without putting a monster at the center, that’s the whole point, we’ll find it.”

“Spare me your high brow references. This place is collapsed, nobody made it like this on purpose, it doesn’t have to have a center.”

They find another terminal which Deacon wastes time hacking and ends up triggering a trap that sends electricity spiralling outwards, zapping MacCready on the arm. He jumps back with a yelp and turns on Deacon, fuming.

“Watch it,” he snaps.

Deacon held up his hands. “It was an accident. If you’re still mad when we get out of here, ok, fair, go to town, but let’s not get worked up again.”

“There’s gotta be a way to turn off that alarm,” MacCready muttered, shouldering Deacon out of the way and leaning over the terminal, pressing random buttons.

“We don’t have time to waste on that.”

“It’s driving me nuts, they must control the intercom system from somewhere.”

“It’s probably automated and has nothing to do with the normal acoustics, if anything you’re just gonna turn on more racket.”

At that moment MacCready stumbled upon the intercom system and with a triumphant laugh began mashing buttons.

“MacCready, stop, you’re just turning it off and on again, it’s trying to play whatever tape it says is inserted.”

MacCready leaned back. There was a click, a whir, and then music began to filter through the tinny speakers.

_ Well it’s been building up inside of me _

_ For oh I don't know how long _

_ I don't know why _

_ But I keep thinking _

_ Something's bound to go wrong _

 

The two men looked at each other.

“This is worse,” said Deacon.

“Definitely worse,” said MacCready.

They stood there for a moment, listening.

“I guess it’s not terrible,” said Deacon.

“Yeah, you know, when you’re used to Sole playing Diamond City radio all day, anything that’s not the same ten songs again is at least refreshing.”

“I guess the employees had to have fun somehow, keep it light while they tested their murder drugs.”

MacCready snorted. They left the room and let the music play.

 

_ But she looks in my eyes _

_ And makes me realize _

_ And she says "Don't worry baby" _

_ Don't worry baby _

_ Don't worry baby _

_ Everything will turn out alright _

 

They make quick work of the rest of the Gunners they encounter, because no matter how edgy the fog has made them, the Gunners are all off their rockers, and often finish each other off before they have a chance. MacCready catches himself humming along to the song and unfortunately so does Deacon, who just snorts and shakes his head at MacCready’s furious blush.

They eventually find themselves in a hall full of sealed cells with glass walls and ceilings, rooms full of Gunners pacing and eyeing each other like wary predators.

“What the heck?” said MacCready.

“I say we just sort’ve...leave em,” said Deacon.

“Yeah, ok,” said MacCready. He didn’t have the awareness to debate the morality of that, and besides, he’d usually left the moral philosophizing to Sole’s other companions unless it directly involved someone they both considered family. Whatever scene he'd made earlier was something to think about later. The Gunners would probably finish each other off anyway.

 

They backtrack a bit and wind their way up, find themselves standing atop the glass-walled cells, and then MacCready busies himself with taking out the Gunners shooting at them from a ledge that must have once been some sort of catwalk while Deacon slips on ahead into some kind of control room. MacCready joins him and finds Deacon inspecting a panel of buttons.

“It’s some kind of display, to impress potential investors, show off the products,” he said.

“What’s this one do?” MacCready said, pushing a button. A misty gas dispensed into one of the cells and the Gunners inside begin clutching their heads, screaming something they can’t hear, and then they begin to tear each other apart. MacCready’s stomach churns and he feels the blood drain from his face. He pushes the button again and again. “Stop, take it back,” he said, jabbing the button in rapid succession.

“We can’t, it’s done. You don’t have to watch,” said Deacon.

MacCready swallowed aroudn the lump in his throat. “I should like this. Why don’t I, these are terrible people, I shouldn’t feel sick, the guys I just shot won’t keep me up at night.”

“Because you’re not a sadist,” said Deacon. “No matter how much you hate Gunners, you don’t wish that kind of death upon them. It’s a good thing. Only the sickest bastards in the wastes don’t get a little queasy about torture. I wonder how people dealt with it, before, if it even happened, or if that’s just another lovely gift we got from the bombs.”

“I doubt it,” said MacCready. “We’ve always been a bunch of lousy animals. Let’s go, let’s get out of here.”


End file.
